Ni 


^^^  ^4 


THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 

OF  CALIFORNIA 

LOS  ANGELES 


GIFT  OF 

FREDERIC  THOMAS  BLANCHARD 

FOR  THE 

ENGLISH  READING  ROOM 


Digitized  by  the  Internet  Arcinive 

in  2007  with  funding  from 

IVIicrosoft  Corporation 


http://www.archive.org/details/aylwinwattsdOOwattiala 


Aylwin 


Theodore  \Watts-Dunton 

t—^ — „ 

Author  of  "The  Coming  of  Love:   Rhona  Boswell's  Story" 


"  Quoth  Ja'afar,  bowing  low  his  head  : — '  Bold  is  the 
donkey-driver,  O  Ka'dee !  and  bold  the  ka'dee  who  dares 
say  what  he  will  believe,  what  disbelieve — not  knowing 
in  any  wise  the  mind  of  Allah — not  knowing  in  any  wise 
his  own  heart,  and  what  it  shall  some  day  suffer.' " 


New  York 

DoDD,  Mead  and  Company 
1898 


^ '  i^'^Cofyrifrhty  i8q8. 
By  DoDD,  Mead  and  Company 


Printed  by  Redfield  Brothers,  New  York 


Contents 


PAGE 
I. 

The  Cymric  Child i 

II. 
The  Moonlight  Cross  of  the  Gnostics       ...       41 

III. 

WiNiFRED'S   DUKKERIPEN I25 

IV. 

The  Leader  of  the  Aylwinians 171 

V. 
Haroun-al-Raschid,  the  Painter 199 

VI. 
The  Song  of  Y  Wyddfa 221 

VII. 

SiNFi'S   DUKKERIPEN 229 

VIII. 

Isis  as  Humourist  ....  ...      241 


Contents 


PAGE 
IX. 

The  Palace  of  Nin-ki-gal    .        .        .        .        .       ,        .  255 

X. 

Behind  the  Veil 271 

XI. 

The  Irony  of  Heaven 293 

XII. 
The  Revolving  Cage  of   Circumstance        .        .        .      313 

XIII. 
The   Magic  of  Snowdon 343 

XIV. 
SiNFi's  Coup  de  Theatre 365 

XV. 
The  Daughter  of  Snowdon's  Story  ....  387 

XVI. 
D'Arcy's  Letter 431 

XVII. 
The  Two  Dukkeripens 447 

XVIII. 
The  Walk  to  Llanberis 457 


I. 
The   Cymric   Child 


I.— THE   CYMRIC   CHILD 


"Those  who  in  childhood  have  had  sohtary  communings 
with  the  sea  know  the  sea's  prophecy.  They  know  that  there 
is  a  deeper  sympathy  between  the  sea  and  the  soul  of  man 
than  other  people  dre&m  of.  They  know  that  the  water  seems 
nearer  akin  than  the  land  to  the  spiritual  world,  inasmuch 
as  it  is  one  and  indivisible,  and  has  motion,  and  answers  to 
the  mysterious  call  of  the  winds,  and  is  the  writing  tablet  of 
the  moon  and  stars.  When  a  child  who,  born  beside  the  sea, 
and  beloved  by  the  sea,  feels  suddenly,  as  he  gazes  upon  it,  a 
dim  sense  of  pity  and  warning;  w^hen  there  comes,  or  seems 
to  come,  a  shadow  across  the  waves,  with  never  a  cloud  in 
the  sky  to  cast  it;  when  there  comes  a  shuddering  as  of 
wings  that  move  in  dread  or  ire,  then  such  a  child  feels  as  if 
the  blood-hounds  of  calamity  are  let  loose  upon  him  or  upon 
those  he  loves;  he  feels  that  the  sea  has  told  him  all  it  dares 
tell  or  can.  And,  in  other  moods  of  fate,  when  beneath  a 
cloudy  sky  the  myriad  dimples  of  the  sea  begin  to  sparkle  as 
though  the  sun  were  shining  bright  upon  them,  such  a  child 
feels,  as  he  gazes  at  it,  that  the  sea  is  telling  him  of  some 
great  joy  near  at  hand,  or,  at  least,  not  far  ofJ," 

One  lovely  summer  afternoon  a  little  boy  was  sitting  on 
the  edge  of  the  cliff  that  skirts  the  old  churchyard  of  Rax- 
ton-on-Sea.  He  was  sitting  on  the  grass  close  to  the  brink 
of  the  indentation  cut  by  the  water  into  the  horse-shoe  curve 
called  by  the  fishermen  Mousetrap  Cove ;  sitting  there  as  still 
as  an  image  of  a  boy  in  stone,  at  the  forbidden  spot  where 
the  wooden  fence  proclaimed  the  crumbling  hollow  crust 
to  be  specially  dangerous — sitting  and  looking  across  the 
sheer  deep  gulf  below. 

Flinty  Point  on  his  right  was  sometimes  in  purple  shadow 


2  Aylwin 

and  sometimes  shining  in  the  sun;  Needle  Point  on  his  left 
was  sometimes  in  purple  shadow  and  sometimes  shining  in 
the  sun;  and  beyond  these  headlands  spread  now  the  wide 
purple,  and  now  the  wide  sparkle  of  the  open  sea.  The 
very  gulls,  wheeling  as  close  to  him  as  they  dared,  seemed  to 
be  frightened  at  the  little  boy's  peril.  Straight  ahead  he  was 
gazing,  however — gazing  so  intently  that  his  eyes  must  have 
been  seeing  very  much  or  else  very  little  of  that  limitless 
world  of  light  and  coloured  shade.  On  account  of  certain 
questions  connected  with  race  that  will  be  raised  in  this  nar- 
rative, I  must  dwell  a  little  while  upon  the  child's  personal 
appearance,  and  especially  upon  his  colour.  Natural  or 
acquired,  it  was  one  that  might  be  almost  called  unique;  as 
much  like  a  young  Gypsy's  colour  as  was  compatible  with 
respectable  descent,  and  yet  not  a  Gypsy's  colour.  A  deep 
undertone  of  ''Romany  brown"  seemed  breaking  through 
that  peculiar  kind  of  ruddy  golden  glow  which  no  sunshine 
can  give  till  it*has  itself  been  deepened  and  coloured  and  en- 
riched by  the  responsive  kisses  of  the  sea. 

Moreover,  there  was  a  certain  something  in  his  eyes  that 
was  not  Gypsy-like — a  something  which  is  not  uncommonly 
seen  in  the  eyes  of  boys  born  along  that  coast,  whether  those 
eyes  be  black  or  blue  or  grey;  a  something  which  cannot  be 
described,  but  which  seems  like  a  reflex  of  the  daring  gaze 
of  that  great  land-conquering  and  daring  sea.  Very  striking 
was  this  expression  as  he  momentarily  turned  his  face  land- 
ward to  watch  one  of  the  gulls  that  had  come  wheeling  up 
the  cliffs  towards  the  flinty  grey  tower  of  the  church — the 
old  deserted  church,  whose  graveyard  the  sea  had  already 
half  washed  away.  As  his  eyes  followed  the  bird's  move- 
ments, however,  this  daring  sea-look  seemed  to  be  growing 
gradually  weaker  and  weaker.  At  last  it  faded  away  alto- 
gether, and  by  the  time  his  face  was  turned  again  towards 
the  sea,  the  look  I  have  tried  to  describe  was  supplanted  by 
such  a  gaze  as  that  gull  w^ould  give  were  it  hiding  behind  a 
boulder  with  a  broken  wnng.  A  mist  of  cruel  trouble  was 
covering  his  eyes,  and  soon  the  mist  had  grown  into  two 
bright  glittering  pearly  tears,  which,  globing  and  trembling, 
larger  and  larger,  were  at  length  big  enough  to  drown  both 
eyes;  big  enough  to  drop,  shining,  on  the  grass;  big  enough 
to  blot  out  altogether  the  most  brilliant  picture  that  sea  and 
sky  could  make.  For  that  little  boy  had  begun  to  learn  a 
lesson  which  life  was  going  to  teach  him  fully — the  lesson 


The  Cymric  Child  3 

that  shining  sails  in  the  sunny  wind,  and  black  trailing  bands 
of  smoke  passing  here  and  there  along  the  horizon,  and 
silvery  gulls  dipping  playfully  into  the  green  and  silver 
waves  (nay,  all  the  beauties  and  all  the  wonders  of  the 
world),  make  but  a  blurred  picture  to  eyes  that  look 
through  the  lens  of  tears.  However,  with  a  brown  hand 
brisk  and  angry,  he  brushed  away  these  tears,  like  one  who 
should  say,  "This  kind  of  thing  will  never  do." 

Indeed,  so  hardy  was  the  boy's  face — tanned  by  the  sun, 
hardened  and  bronzed  by  the  wind,  reddened  by  the  brine — 
that  tears  seemed  entirely  out  of  place  there.  The 
meaning  of  those  tears  must  be  fully  accounted  for,  and  if 
possible  fully  justified,  for  this  little  boy  is  to  be  the  hero  of 
this  story.  In  other  words  he  is  Henry  Aylwin;  that  is  to 
say,  myself;  and  those  who  know  me  now  in  the  full  vigour 
of  manhood,  a  lusty  knight  of  the  alpenstock  of  some  re- 
pute, will  be  surprised  to  know  what  troubled  me.  They 
will  be  surprised  to  know  that  owing  to  a  fall  from  the  cliff 
I  was  for  about  two  years  a  cripple. 

This  is  how  it  came  about.  Rough  and  yielding  as  were 
the  paths,  called  "gangways,"  connecting  the  cliffs  with  the 
endless  reaches  of  sand  below,  they  were  not  rough  enough, 
or  yielding  enough,  or  in  any  way  dangerous  enough 
for  me. 

So  I  used  to  fashion  "gangways"  of  my  own;  I  used  to 
descend  the  cliff  at  whatsoever  point  it  pleased  me,  clinging 
to  the  lumps  of  sandy  earth  with  the  prehensile  power  of  a 
spider-monkey.  Many  a  warning  had  I  had  from  the  good 
fishermen  and  sea-folk,  that  some  day  I  should  fall  from  top 
to  bottom — fall  and  break  my  neck.  A  laugh  was  my  sole 
answer  to  these  warnings;  for,  with  the  possession  of  per- 
fect health,  I  had  inherited  that  instinctive  belief  in  good 
luck  which  perfect  health  will  often  engender. 

However,  my  punishment  came  at  last.  The  coast,  which 
is  yielding  gradually  to  the  sea,  is  famous  for  sudden  and 
gigantic  landslips.  These  landslips  are  sometimes  followed, 
at  the  return  of  the  tide,  by  a  further  fall,  called  a  "settle- 
ment." The  word  "settlement"  explains  itself,  perhaps.  No 
matter  how  smooth  the  sea,  the  return  of  the  tide  seems  on 
that  coast  to  have  a  strange  magnetic  power  upon  the  land, 
and  the  debris  of  a  landslip  will  sometimes,  though  not  al- 
ways, respond  to  it  by  again  falling  and  settling  into  new 
and  permanent  shapes. 


4  Aylwin 

Now,  on  the  morning  after  a  great  landslip,  when  the 
coastguard,  returning  on  his  beat,  found  a  cove  where,  half- 
an-hour  before,  he  had  left  his  own  cabbages  growing,  I, 
in  spite  of  all  warnings,  had  climbed  the  heap  of  debris  from 
the  sands,  and  while  I  was  hallooing  triumphantly  to  two 
companions  below — the  two  most  impudent-looking  urch- 
ins, barefooted  and  unkempt,  that  ever  a  gentleman's  son 
forgathered  with — a  great  mass  of  loose  earth  settled,  carry- 
ing me  with  it  in  its  fall.    I  was  taken  up  for  dead. 

It  was,  however,  only  a  matter  of  broken  ribs  and  a  dam- 
aged leg.  And  there  is  no  doubt  that  if  the  local  surgeon 
had  not  been  allowed  to  have  his  own  way,  I  should  soon 
have  been  cured.  As  it  was  I  became  a  cripple.  The  great 
central  fact — the  very  pivot  upon  which  all  the  wheels  of 
my  life  have  since  been  turning — is  that  for  two  years  dur- 
ing the  impressionable  period  of  childhood  I  walked  on 
crutches. 

It  must  not  be  supposed  that  my  tears — the  tears  which 
at  this  moment  were  blotting  out  the  light  and  glory  of  the 
North  Sea  in  the  sun — came  from  the  pain  I  was  suffering. 
They  came  from  certain  terrible  news,  which  even  my 
brother  Frank  had  been  careful  to  keep  from  me,  but  which 
had  fallen  from  the  lips  of  my  father — the  news  that  I  was 
not  unlikely  to  be  a  cripple  for  life.  From  that  moment  I  had 
become  a  changed  being,  solitary  and  sometimes  morose.  I 
would  come  and  sit  staring  at  the  ocean,  meditating  on 
things  in  general,  but  chiefly  on  things  connected  with  crip- 
ples, asking  myself,  as  now,  whether  life  would  be  bearable 
on  crutches. 

At  my  heart  were  misery  and  anger  and  such  revolt  as  is, 
I  hope,  rarely  found  in  the  heart  of  a  child.  I  had  sat  down 
outside  the  rails  at  this  most  dangerous  point  along  the  clifif, 
wondering  whether  or  not  it  would  crumble  beneath  me. 
For  this  lameness  coming  to  me,  who  had  been  so  active, 
who  had  been,  indeed,  the  Httle  athlete  and  pugilist  of  the 
sands,  seemed  to  have  isolated  me  from  my  fellow-creatures 
to  a  degree  that  is  inconceivable  to  me  now.  A  stubborn 
will  and  masterful  pride  made  me  refuse  to  accept  a  disaster 
such  as  many  a  nobler  soul  than  mine  has,  I  am  conscious, 
borne  with  patience.  My  nature  became  soured  by  asking 
in  vain  for  sympathy  at  home;  my  loneliness  drove  me — 
silent,  haughty  and  aggressive — to  haunt  the  churchyard, 
and  sit  at  the  edge  of  the  cliff,  gazing  wistfully  at  the  sea  and 


The  Cymric   Child  5 

the  sands  which  could  not  be  reached  on  crutches.  Like  a 
wounded  sea-gull,  I  retired  and  took  my  trouble  alone. 

How  could  I  help  taking  it  alone  when  none  would  sym- 
pathise with  me?  My  brother  Frank  called  me  "The  Black 
Savage,"  and  I  half  began  to  suspect  myself  of  secret  im- 
pulses of  a  savage  kind.  Once  I  heard  my  mother  mur- 
mur, as  she  stroked  Frank's  rosy  cheeks  and  golden  curls, 
"My  poor  Henry  is  a  strange,  proud  boy!"  Then,  looking 
from  my  crutches  to  Frank's  beautiful  limbs,  she  said,  "How 
providential  that  it  was  not  the  elder!  Providence  is  kind." 
She  meant  kind  to  the  House  of  Aylwin.  I  often  wonder 
whether  she  guessed  that  I  heard  her.  I  often  wonder 
whether  she  knew  how  I  had  loved  her. 

This  is  how  matters  stood  with  me  on  that  summer  after- 
noon, when  I  sat  on  the  edge  of  the  cliff  in  a  kind  of  dull, 
miserable  dream.  Suddenly,  at  the  moment  when  the  huge 
mass  of  clouds  had  covered  the  entire  surface  of  the  water 
between  Flinty  Point  and  Needle  Point  with  their  rich  pur- 
ple shadow,  it  seemed  to  me  that  the  waves  began  to  sparkle 
and  laugh  in  a  joyful  radiance  which  they  were  making  for 
themselves.  And  at  that  same  moment  an  unwonted  sound 
struck  my  ear  from  the  churchyard  behind  me — a  strange 
sound  indeed  in  that  deserted  place — that  of  a  childish  voice 
singing. 

Was,  then,  the  mighty  ocean  writing  symbols  for  an  un- 
happy child  to  read?  My  father,  from  whose  book,  TJw 
Veiled  Queen,  the  extract  with  which  this  chapter  opens  is 
taken,  would  unhesitatingly  have  answered  "Yes." 

"Destiny,  no  doubt,  in  the  Greek  drama  concerns  itself 
only  with  the  great,"  says  he,  in  that  wonderful  book  of  his. 
"But  who  are  the  great?  With  the  unseen  powers,  mys- 
terious and  imperious,  who  govern  while  they  seem  not  to 
govern  all  that  is  seen,  who  are  the  great?  In  a  world  where 
man's  loftiest  ambitions  are  to  higher  intelligences  childish 
dreams,  where  his  highest  knowledge  is  ignorance,  where 
his  strongest  strength  is  derision — who  are  the  great?  Are 
they  not  the  few  men  and  women  and  children  on  the  earth 
who  greatly  love?" 


Aylwin 


11. 

So  sweet  a  sound  as  that  childish  voice  I  had  never  heard 
before.    I  held  my  breath  and  listened. 

Into  my  very  being  that  child-voice  passed,  and  it  was  a 
new  music  and  a  new  joy.  I  can  give  the  reader  no  notion 
of  it,  because  there  is  not  in  nature  anything  with  which  I 
can  compare  it.  The  blackcap  has  a  climacteric  note,  just 
before  his  song  collapses  and  dies,  so  full  of  pathos  and  ten- 
derness that  often,  when  I  had  been  sitting  on  a  gate  in 
Wilderness  Road,  it  had  affected  me  more  deeply  than  any 
human  words.  But  here  was  a  note  sweet  and  soft  as  that, 
and  yet  charged  with  a  richness  no  blackcap's  song  had  ever 
borne,  because  no  blackcap  has  ever  felt  the  joys  and  sor- 
rows of  a  young  human  soul. 

The  voice  was  singing  in  a  language  which  seemed 
strange  to  me  then,  but  has  been  familiar  enough  since: 

"Bore  o'r  cwmvvl  aur, 
Eryri  oedd  dy  gaer, 
Brenhin  o  wyllt  a  gwar, 
Gwawr  ysbrydau."* 

Intense  curiosity  now  made  me  suddenly  forget  my  troubles. 
I  scrambled  back  through  the  trees  not  far  from  that  spot 
and  looked  around.  There,  sitting  upon  a  grassy  grave, 
beneath  one  of  the  windows  of  the  church,  was  a  little  girl, 
somewhat  younger  than  myself  apparently.  With  her  head 
bent  back  she  was  gazing  up  at  the  sky  and  singing,  while 
one  of  her  little  hands  was  pointing  to  a  tiny  cloud  that  hov- 
ered like  a  golden  feather  over  her  head.  The  sun,  which 
had  suddenly  become  very  bright,  shining  on  her  glossy  hair 
(for  she  was  bareheaded)  gave  it  a  metallic  lustre,  and  it 
was  difficult  to  say  what  was  the  colour,  dark  bronze  or 
black.  So  completely  absorbed  was  she  in  watching  the 
cloud  to  which  her  strange  song  or  incantation  seemed  ad- 

*Morning  of  the  golden  cloud, 
Eryri  was  thy  castle, 
King  of  the  wild  and  tame, 
Glory  of  the  spirits  of  air! 
Eryri — the  Place  of  Eagles,  i.  e.,  Snowdon. 


The  Cymric  Child  7 

dressed,  that  she  did  not  observe  me  when  I  rose  and  went 
towards  her.  Over  her  head,  high  up  in  the  blue,  a  lark 
that  was  soaring  towards  the  same  gauzy  cloud  was  singing, 
as  if  in  rivalry.  As  I  slowly  approached  the  child,  I  could 
see  by  her  forehead  (which  in  the  sunshine  seemed  like  a 
globe  of  pearl),  and  especially  by  her  complexion,  that  she 
was  uncommonly  lovely,  and  I  was  afraid  lest  she  should 
look  down  before  I  got  close  to  her,  and  so  see  my  crutches 
before  her  eyes  encountered  my  face.  She  did  not,  however, 
seem  to  hear  me  coming  along  the  grass  (so  intent  was  she 
with  her  singing)  until  I  was  close  to  her,  and  throwing  my 
shadow  over  her.  Then  she  suddenly  lowered  her  head  and 
looked  at  me  in  surprise.  I  stood  transfixed  at  her  aston- 
ishing beauty.  No  other  picture  has  ever  taken  such  pos- 
session of  me.  In  its  every  detail  it  lives  before  me  now. 
Her  eyes  (which  at  one  moment  seemed  blue  grey,  at  an- 
other violet)  were  shaded  by  long  black  lashes,  curving 
backward  in  a  most  peculiar  way,  and  these  matched  in  hue 
her  eyebrows,  and  the  tresses  that  Vv^ere  tossed  about  her 
tender  throat  and  were  quivering  in  the  sunlight. 

All  this  picture  I  did  not  take  in  at  once;  for  at  first  I 
could  see  nothing  but  those  quivering,  glittering,  changeful 
eyes  turned  up  into  my  face.  Gradually  the  other  features 
(especially  the  sensitive  full-lipped  mouth)  grew  upon  me  as 
I  stood  silently  gazing.  Here  seemed  to  me  a  more  perfect 
beauty  than  had  ever  come  to  me  in  my  loveliest  dreams  of 
beauty  beneath  the  sea.  Yet  it  was  not  her  beauty,  perhaps, 
so  much  as  the  look  she  gave  me,  that  fascinated  me,  melted 
me. 

As  she  gazed  in  my  face  there  came  over  hers  a  look  of 
pleased  surprise,  and  then,  as  her  eyes  passed  rapidly  down 
my  limbs  and  up  again,  her  face  was  not  overshadowed  with 
the  look  of  disappointment  which  I  had  waited  for — yes, 
waited  for,  like  a  pinioned  criminal  for  the  executioner's  up- 
lifted knife;  but  the  smile  of  pleasure  was  still  playing  about 
the  little  mouth,  while  the  tender  young  eyes  were  moisten- 
ing rapidly  with  the  dews  of  a  kind  of  pity  that  was  new  to 
me,  a  pity  that  did  not  blister  the  pride  of  the  lonely 
wounded  sea-gull,  but  soothed,  healed,  and  blessed. 

Remember  that  I  was  a  younger  son — that  I  was  swarthy 
— that  I  was  a  cripple — and  that  my  mother — had  Frank.  It 
was  as  though  my  heart  must  leap  from  my  breast  towards 
that  child.     Not  a  word  had  she  spoken,  but  she  had  said 


8  Aylwin 

what  the  little  maimed  "fighting  Hal"  yearned  to  hear,  and 
without  knowing  that  he  yearned. 

I  restrained  myself,  and  did  not  yield  to  the  feeling  that 
impelled  me  to  throw  my  arms  about  her  neck  in  an  ecstasy 
of  wonder  and  delight.  After  a  second  or  two  she  again 
threw  back  her  head  to  gaze  at  the  golden  cloud. 

"Look!"  said  she,  suddenly  clapping  her  hands,  "it's  over 
both  of  us  now." 

"What  is  it?"  I  said. 

"The  Dukkeripen,"  she  said,  "the  Golden  Hand.  Sinfi 
and  Rhona  both  say  the  Golden  Hand  brings  luck:  what  is 
luck?" 

I  looked  up  at  the  little  cloud  which  to  me  seemed  more 
like  a  golden  feather  than  a  golden  hand.  But  I  soon  bent 
my  eyes  down  again  to  look  at  her. 

While  I  stood  looking  at  her,  the  tall  figure  of  a  man 
came  out  of  the  church.  This  was  Tom  Wynne.  Besides 
being  the  organist  of  Raxton  "New  Church,"  Tom  was  also 
(for  a  few  extra  shilhngs  a  week)  custodian  of  the  "Old 
Church,"  this  deserted  pile  within  whose  precincts  we  now 
were.  Tom's  features  wore  an  expression  of  virtuous  in- 
dignation which  puzzled  me,  and  evidently  frightened  the 
little  girl.  He  locked  the  door,  and  walked  unsteadily 
towards  us.  He  seemed  surprised  to  see  me  there,  and  his 
features  relaxed  into  a  bland  civility. 

"This  is  (hiccup)  Master  Aylwin,  Winifred,"  he  said. 

The  child  looked  at  me  again  with  the  same  smile.  Her 
alarm  had  fled. 

"This  is  my  little  daughter  Winifred,"  said  Tom  with  a 
pompous  bow. 

I  was  astonished.  I  never  knew  that  Wynne  had  a  daugh- 
ter, for,  intimate  as  he  and  I  had  become,  he  had  actually 
never  mentioned  his  daughter  before. 

"My  only  daughter,"  Tom  repeated. 

He  then  told  me,  with  many  hiccups,  that,  since  her 
mother's  death  (that  is  to  say  from  her  very  infancy),  Wini- 
fred had  been  brought  up  by  an  aunt  in  Wales.  "Quite  a 
lady,  her  aunt  is,"  said  Tom  proudly,  "and  Winifred  has 
come  to  spend  a  few  weeks  with  her  father." 

He  said  this  in  a  grandly  paternal  tone — a  tone  that 
seemed  meant  to  impress  upon  her  how  very  much  obliged 
she  ought  to  feel  to  him  for  consenting  to  be  her  father;  and. 


The   Cymric   Child  9 

judging  from  the  look  the  child  gave  him,  she  did  feel  very 
much  obliged. 

Suddenly,  however,  a  thought  seemed  to  come  back  upon 
Tom,  a  thought  which  my  unexpected  appearance  on  the 
scene  had  driven  from  his  drunken  brain.  The  look  of 
virtuous  indignation  returned,  and,' staring  at  the  little  girl 
through  glazed  eyes,  he  said  in  the  tremulous  and  tearful 
voice  of  a  deeply  injured  parent: 

"Winifred,  I  thought  I  heard  you  singing  one  of  them 
heathen  Gypsy  songs  that  you  learned  of  the  Gypsies  in 
Wales.'' 

"No,  father,"  said  she,  "it  was  the  song  they  sing  in  Shire- 
Carnarvon  about  the  golden  cloud  over  Snowdon  and  the 
spirits  of  the  air."' 

"Yc5,"  said  Tom,  "but  a  little  while  ago  you  were  singing 
a  Gypsy  song — a  downright  heathen  Gypsy  song.  I  heard 
it  about  half  an  hour  ago  when  I  was  in  the  church." 

The  beautiful  little  head  drooped  in  shame. 

"I'm  s'prised  at  you,  Winifred !  When  I  come  to  think 
whose  daughter  you  are, — mine! — I'm  s'prised  at  you,"  con- 
tinued Tom,  whose  virtuous  indignation  waxed  with  every 
word. 

"Oh,  I'm  so  sorry!"  said  the  child.  "I  won't  do  it  any 
more.'' 

This  contrition  of  the  child's  only  fanned  the  flame  of 
Tom's  virtuous  indignation. 

"Here  am  I,"  said  he,  "the  most  (hiccup)  respectable  man 
in  two  parishes, — except  Master  Aylwin's  father,  of  course, 
— here  am  I,  the  organ-player  for  the  Christianest  of  all  the 
Christian  churches  along  the  coast,  and  here's  my  daughter 
sings  heathen  songs  just  like  a  Gypsy  or  a  tinker.  I'm 
s'prised  at  you,  Winifred." 

I  had  often  seen  Tom  in  a  dignified  state  of  liquor,  but  the 
pathetic  expression  of  injured  virtue  that  again  overspread 
his  face  so  changed  it,  that  I  had  some  difficulty  myself  in 
realising  how  entirely  the  tears  filling  his  eyes  and  the  grief 
at  his  heart  were  of  alcoholic  origin.  And  as  to  the  little 
girl,  she  began  to  sob  piteously. 

"Oh  dear,  oh  dear,  what  a  wicked  girl  I  am!"  said  she. 

This  exclamation,  however,  aroused  my  ire  against  Tom; 
and  as  I  always  looked  upon  him  as  my  special  paid  hench- 
man, who,  in  return  for  such  services  as  supplying  me  with 
tiny  boxing-gloves,  and  fishing-tackle,  and  bait,  during  my 


lo  Aylwin 

hale  days,  and  tame  rabbits  now  that  I  was  a  cripple,  mostly 
contrived  to  possess  himself  of  my  pocket-money,  I  had  no 
hesitation  in  exclaiming: 

"Why,  Tom,  you  know  you're  drunk,  you  silly  old  foolT' 

At  this  Tom  turned  his  mournful  and  reproachful  gaze 
upon  me,  and  began  to  weep  anew.  Then  he  turned  and 
addressed  the  sea,  uplifting  his  hand  in  oratorical  fashion: — 

"Here's  a  young  gentleman  as  I've  been  more  than  a 
father  to — yes,  more  than  a  father  to — for  when  did  his  own 
father  ever  give  him  a  ferret-eyed  rabbit,  a  real  ferret-eyed 
rabbit  thoroughbred?" 

"Why,  I  gave  you  one  of  my  five-shilling  pieces  for  it," 
said  I;  "and  the  rabbit  was  in  a  consumption  and  died  in 
three  weeks." 

But  Tom  still  addressed  the  sea. 

"When  did  his  own  father  give  him,"  said  he,  "the  longest 
thigh-bone  that  the  sea  ever  washed  out  of  Raxton  church- 
yard?" 

"Why,  I  gave  you  two  of  my  five-shilling  pieces  for  that," 
said  I,  "and  next  day  you  went  and  borrowed  the  bone,  and 
sold  it  over  again  to  Dr.  Munro  for  a  quart  of  beer." 

"When  did  his  own  father  give  him  a  beautiful  skull  for  a 
money-box,  and  make  an  oak  lid  to  it,  and  keep  it  for  him 
because  his  mother  wouldn't  have  it  in  the  house?" 

"Ah,  but  where's  the  money  that  was  in  it,  Tom? 
Where's  the  money?"  said  I,  flourishing  one  of  my  crutches, 
for  I  was  worked  up  to  a  state  of  high  excitement  when  I 
recalled  my  own  wrongs  and  Tom's  frauds,  and  I  forgot  his 
relationship  to  the  little  girl.  "Where  are  the  bright  new 
half-crowns  that  were  in  the  money-box  when  I  left  it  with 
you — the  half-crowns  that  got  changed  into  pennies,  Tom? 
Where  are  thcyf  What's  the  use  of  having  a  skull  for  a 
money-box  if  it's  got  no  money  in  it?  That's  what  /  want  to 
know,  Tom!" 

"Here's  a  young  gentleman,"  said  Tom,  "as  I've  done  all 
these  things  for,  and  how  does  he  treat  me?  He  says,  'Why 
Tom,  you  know  you're  drunk,  you  silly  old  fool.'  " 

At  this  pathetic  appeal  the  little  girl  sprang  up  and  turned 
towards  me  with  the  ferocity  of  a  young  tigress.  Her  little 
hands  were  tightly  clenched,  and  her  eyes  seemed  positively 
to  be  emitting  blue  sparks.  Many  a  bold  boy  had  I  en- 
countered on  the  sands  before  my  accident,  and  many  a 
fearless  girl,  but  such  an  impetuous  antagonist  as  this  was 


The  Cymric   Child  1 1 

new.  I  leaned  on  my  crutches,  however,  and  looked  at  her 
unblenchingly. 

"You  wicked  English  boy,  to  make  my  father  cry,"  said 
she,  as  soon  as  her  anger  allowed  her  to  speak.  "If  you 
were  not  lame  I'd — I'd — ^I'd  hit  you." 

I  did  not  move  a  muscle,  but  stood  lost  in  a  dream  of 
wonder  at  her  amazing  loveliness.  The  fiery  flush  upon  her 
face  and  neck,  the  bewitching  childish  frown  of  anger  corru- 
gating the  brow,  the  dazzling  glitter  of  the  teeth,  the  quiver 
of  the  full  scarlet  lips  above  and  below  them,  turned  me 
dizzy  with  admiration. 

Her  eyes  met  mine,  and  slowly  the  violet  flames  in  them 
began  to  soften.  Then  they  died  away  entirely  as  she  mur- 
mured: 

"You  wicked  English  boy,  if  you  hadn't — beautiful — 
beautiful  eyes,  I'd  kill  you." 

By  this  time,  however,  Tom  had  entirely  forgotten  his 
grievance  against  me,  and  gazed  upon  Winifred  in  a  state 
of  drunken  wonderment. 

"Winifred,"  he  said,  in  a  tone  of  sorrowful  reproach,  "how 
dare  you  speak  like  that  to  Master  Aylwin,  your  father's  best 
friend,  the  only  friend  your  poor  father's  got  in  the  world, 
the  friend  as  I  give  ferret-eyed  rabbits  to,  and  tame  hares, 
and  beautiful  skulls?  Beg  his  pardon  this  instant,  Winifred. 
Down  on  your  knees  and  beg  my  friend's  pardon  this  in- 
stant, Winifred." 

The  poor  little  girl  stood  dazed,  and  was  actually  sinking 
down  on  her  knees  on  the  grass  before  me. 

I  cried  out  in  acute  distress: 

"No,  no,  no,  no,  Tom,  pray  don't  let  her — dear  little  girl! 
beautiful  little  girl!" 

"Very  well,  Master  Aylwin,"  said  Tom,  grandly,  "she 
sha'n't  if  you  don't  like,  but  she  shall  go  and  kiss  you  and 
make  it  up." 

At  this  the  child's  face  brightened,  and  she  came  and 
laid  her  little  red  lips  upon  mine.  Velvet  lips,  I  feel  them 
now,  soft  and  warm — I  feel  them  while  I  write  these  lines. 

Tom  looked  on  for  a  moment,  and  then  left  us,  blunder- 
ing away  towards  Raxton,  most  likely  to  a  beer-house. 

He  told  the  child  that  she  was  to  go  home  and  mind  the 
house  until  he  returned.  He  gave  her  the  church  key  to 
take  home.  We  two  were  left  alone  in  the  churchyard,  look- 
ing at  each  other  in  silence,  each  waiting  for  the  other  to 


1 2  Aylwin 

speak.  At  last  she  said,  demurely,  "Good-bye;  father  says 
I  must  go  home," 

And  she  walked  away  with  a  business-like  air  toward  the 
little  white  gate  of  the  churchyard,  opening  upon  what  was 
called  "The  Wilderness  Road."  When  she  reached  the  gate 
she  threw  a  look  over  her  shoulder  as  she  passed  through. 
It  was  that  same  look  again — wistful,  frank,  courageous.  I 
immediately  began  to  follow  her,  although  I  did  not  know 
why.  When  she  saw  this  she  stopped  for  me.  I  got  up  to 
her,  and  then  we  proceeded  side  by  side  in  perfect  silence 
along  the  dusty  narrow  road,  perfumed  with  the  scent  of 
wild  rose  and  honeysuckle.    Suddenly  she  stooped  and  said: 

"1  have  left  my  hat  on  the  tower,"  and  laughed  merrily 
at  her  own  heedlessness. 

She  ran  back  with  an  agility  which  I  thought  I  had  never 
seen  equalled.  It  made  me  sad  to  see  her  run  so  fast, 
though  once  how  it  would  have  delighted  me!  I  stood  still; 
but  when  she  reached  the  church  porch  she  again  looked 
over  her  shoulder,  and  again  I  followed  her: — I  did  not  in 
the  least  know  why.  That  look  I  think  would  have  made 
me  follow  her  through  fire  and  water — it  has  made  me  follow 
her  through  fire  and  water.  When  I  reached  her  she  put  the 
great  black  key  in  the  lock.  She  had  some  difiticulty  in  turn- 
ing the  key,  but  I  did  not  presume  to  offer  such  services  as 
mine  to  so  superior  a  little  woman.  After  one  or  two  fruit- 
less efforts  with  both  her  hands,  each  attempt  accompanied 
with  a  little  laugh  and  a  little  merry  glance  in  my  face,  she 
turned  the  key  and  pushed  open  the  door.  We  both  passed 
into  the  ghastly  old  church,  through  the  green  glass  win- 
dows of  which  the  sun  was  shining,  and  illuminating  the 
broken  remains  of  the  high-backed  pews  on  the  opposite 
side.  She  ran  along  towards  the  belfry,  and  I  soon  lost  her, 
for  she  passed  up  the  stone  steps,  where  I  knew  I  could  not 
follow  her. 

In  deep  mortification  I  stood  listening  at  the  bottom  of  the 
steps — listening  to  those  little  feet  crunching  up  the  broken 
stones — listening  to  the  rustle  of  her  dress  against  the  nar- 
row stone  walls,  until  the  sounds  grew  fainter  and  fainter, 
and  then  ceased. 

Presently  I  heard  her  voice  a  long  way  up,  calling  out, 
"Little  boy,  if  you  go  outside  you  will  see  something,"  I 
guessed  at  once  that  she  was  going  to  exhibit  herself  on  the 
tower,  where,  before  my  accident,  I  and  my  brother  Frank 


The  Cymric  Child  13 

were  s©  fond  of  going.  I  went  outside  the  church  and  stood 
in  the  graveyard,  looking  up  at  the  tower.  In  a  minute  I 
saw  her  on  it.  Her  face  was  turned  towards  me,  gilded  by 
the  golden  sunshine.  I  could,  or  thought  I  could,  even  at 
that  distance,  see  the  flash  of  the  bright  eyes  looking  at  me. 
Then  a  little  hand  was  put  over  the  parapet,  and  I  saw  a 
dark  hat  swinging  by  its  strings,  as  she  was  waving  it  to 
me.  Oh!  that  I  could  have  climbed  those  steps  and  done 
that!  But  that  exploit  of  hers  touched  a  strange  chord 
within  me.  Had  she  been  a  boy,  I  could  have  borne  it  in 
a  defiant  way;  or  had  she  been  any  other  girl  than  this,  my 
heart  would  not  have  sunk  as  it  now  did  when  I  thought 
of  the  gulf  between  her  and  me.  Down  I  sat  upon  a  grave, 
and  looked  at  her  with  a  feeling  quite  new  to  me. 

This  was  a  phase  of  cripplehood  I  had  not  contemplated. 
She  soon  left  the  tower,  and  made  her  appearance  at  the 
church  door  again.  After  locking  it,  which  she  did  by 
thrusting  a  piece  of  stick  through  the  handle  of  the  key, 
she  came  and  stood  over  me.  But  I  turned  my  eyes  away 
and  gazed  across  the  sea,  and  tried  to  deceive  myself  into 
believing  that  the  waves,  and  the  gulls,  and  the  sails  dream- 
ing on  the  sky-line,  and  the  curling  clouds  of  smoke  that 
came  now  and  then  from  a  steamer  passing  Dullingham 
Point  were  interesting  me  deeply.  There  was  a  remoteness 
about  the  little  girl  now,  since  I  had  seen  her  unusual  agil- 
ity, and  I  was  trying  to  harden  my  heart  against  her.  Lone- 
liness I  felt  was  best  for  me.  She  did  not  speak,  but  stood 
looking  at  me.  I  turned  my  eyes  round  and  saw  that  she 
was  looking  at  my  crutches,  which  were  lying  beside  me 
aslant  the  green  hillock  where  I  sat.  Her  face  had  turned 
grave  and  pitiful. 

"Oh!  I  forgot,"  she  said.  'T  wish  I  had  not  run  away 
from  you  now." 

"You  may  run  where  you  like  for  what  I  care,"  I  said. 
But  the  vv^ords  were  very  shaky  and  I  had  no  sooner  said 
them  than  I  wished  them  back.  She  made  no  reply  for  some 
time,  and  I  sat  plucking  the  wild  flowers  near  my  hands, 
and  gazing  again  across  the  sea.    At  last  she  said: 

"Would  you  like  to  come  in  our  garden?  It's  such  a  nice 
garden." 

I  could  resist  her  no  longer.  That  voice  would  have  drawn 
me  had  she  spoken  in  the  language  of  the  Toltecs  or  the  lost 
Zamzummin.    To  describe  it  would  of  course  be  impossible. 


1 4  Aylwin 

The  novelty  of  her  accent,  the  way  in  which  she  gave  the 
"h"  in  "which,"  "what,"  and  "when,"  the  Welsh  rhythm  of 
her  intonation,  were  as  bewitching  to  me  as  the  timbre  of  her 
voice.  And  let  me  say  here,  once  for  all,  that  when  I  sat 
down  to  write  this  narrative,  I  determined  to  give  the  Eng- 
lish reader  some  idea  of  the  way  in  which,  whenever  her 
emotions  were  deeply  touched,  her  talk  would  run  into  soft 
Welsh  diminutives;  but  I  soon  abandoned  the  attempt  in 
despair.  I  found  that  to  use  colloquial  Welsh  with  effect  in 
an  English  context  is  impossible  without  wearying  English 
readers  and  disappointing  Welsh  ones. 

Here,  indeed,  is  one  of  the  great  disadvantages  under 
which  this  book  will  go  out  to  the  world.  While  a  story- 
teller may  reproduce  by  means  of  orthographical  devices, 
something  of  the  effect  of  Scottish  accent,  Irish  accent,  or 
Manx  accent,  such  devices  are  powerless  to  represent  Welsh 
accent. 

I  got  up  in  silence,  and  walked  by  her  side  out  of  the 
churchyard  towards  her  father's  cottage,  which  was  situated 
between  the  new  church  and  the  old,  and  at  a  considerable 
distance  from  the  town  of  Raxton  on  one  side,  and  the  vil- 
lage of  Graylingham  on  the  other.  Her  eager  young  limbs 
would  every  moment  take  her  ahead  of  me,  for  she  was  as 
vigorous  as  a  fawn.  But  by  the  time  she  was  half  a  yard  in 
advance,  she  would  recollect  herself  and  fall  back;  and  every 
time  she  did  so  that  same  look  of  tenderness  would  over- 
spread her  face. 

At  last  she  said,  "What  makes  you  stare  at  me  so,  little 
boy?" 

I  blushed  and  turned  my  head  another  way,  for  I  had  been 
feasting  my  eyes  upon  her  complexion,  and  trying  to  satisfy 
myself  as  to  what  it  really  was  like.  Indeed,  I  thought  it 
quite  peculiar  then,  when  I  had  seen  so  few  lovely  faces,  as  I 
always  did  afterwards,  when  I  had  seen  as  many  as  most 
people.  It  was,  I  thought,  as  though  underneath  the  sun- 
burn the  delicate  pink  tint  of  the  hedgerose  had  become 
mingled  with  the  bloom  of  a  ripening  peach,  and  yet  it  was 
like  neither  peach  nor  rose.  But  this  tone,  whatever  it  was, 
did  not  spread  higher  than  the  eyebrows.  The  forehead  was 
different.  It  had  a  singular  kind  of  pearly  look,  and  her 
long  slender  throat  w^as  almost  of  the  same  tone  :  no,  not  the 
same,  for  there  was  a  transparency  about  her  throat  unlike 
that  of  the  forehead.    This  colour  I  was  just  now  thinking 


The  Cymric  Child  15 

looked  soiiieLliing  like  the  inside  of  a  certain  mysterious 
shell  upon  my  father's  library  shelf. 

As  she  asked  me  her  question  she  stopped,  and  looked 
straight  at  me,  opening  her  eyes  wide  and  round  upon  me. 
This  threw  a  look  of  innocent  trustfulness  over  her  bright 
features  which  I  soon  learnt  was  the  chief  characteristic  of 
her  expression  and  was  altogether  peculiar  to  herself.  I 
knew  it  was  very  rude  to  stare  at  people  as  I  had  been  star- 
ing at  her,  and  I  took  her  question  as  a  rebuke,  although  I 
still  was  unable  to  keep  my  eyes  of¥  her.  But  it  was  not 
merely  her  beauty  and  her  tenderness  that  had  absorbed  my 
attention.  I  had  been  noticing  how  intensely  she  seemed  to 
enjoy  the  delights  of  that  summer  afternoon.  As  we  passed 
along  that  road,  where  sea-scents  and  land-scents  were 
mingled,  she  would  stop  whenever  the  sunshine  fell  full  upon 
her  face;  her  eyes  would  sparkle  and  widen  with  pleasure, 
and  a  half-smile  would  play  about  her  lips,  as  if  some  one 
had  kissed  her.  Every  now  and  then  she  would  stop  and 
listen  to  the  birds,  putting  up  her  finger,  and  with  a  look  of 
childish  wisdom  say,  "Do  you  know  what  that  is?  That's  a 
blackbird — that's  a  thrush — that's  a  goldfinch.  Which  eggs 
do  you  like  best — a  goldfinch's  or  a  bullfinch's?  /  know 
which  /  like  best." 


III. 

While  we  were  walking  along  the  road  a  sound  fell  upon 
my  ears  which  in  my  hale  days  never  produced  any  very  un- 
pleasant sensations,  but  which  did  now.  I  mean  the  cack- 
ling of  the  field  people  of  both  sexes  returning  from  their 
day's  work.  These  people  knew  me  well,  and  they  liked  me, 
and  I  am  sure  they  had  no  idea  that  when  they  ran  past  me 
on  the  road  their  looks  and  nods  gave  me  no  pleasure,  but 
pain;  and  I  always  tried  to  avoid  them.  As  they  passed  us 
they  somewhat  modified  the  noise  they  were  making,  but 
only  to  cackle,  chatter  and  bawl  and  laugh  at  each  other  the 
louder  after  we  were  left  behind. 

"Don't  you  wish,"  said  the  little  girl  meditatively,  "that 
men  and  women  had  voices  more  like  the  birds?" 

The  idea  had  never  occurred  to  me  before,  but  I  under- 
stood in  a  moment  what  she  meant,  and  sympathised  with 


1 6  Aylwin 

her.  Nature  of  course  had  been  unkind  to  the  lords  and 
ladies  of  creation  in  this  one  matter  of  voice. 

"Yes,  I  do,"  I  said. 

"I'm  so  glad  you  do,"  said  she,  "I've  so  often  thought 
what  a  pity  it  is  that  God  did  not  let  men  and  women  talk 
and  sing  as  the  birds  do.  I  believe  He  did  let  'em  talk  like 
that  in  the  Garden  of  Eden,  don't  you?" 

"I  think  it  very  likely,"  I  said. 

"Men's  voices  are  so  rough  mostly  and  women's  voices 
are  so  sharp  mostly,  that  it's  sometimes  a  little  hard  to  love 
'em  as  you  love  the  birds." 

"It  is,"  I  said. 

"Don't  you  think  the  poor  birds  must  sometimes  feel  very 
much  distressed  at  hearing  the  voices  of  men  and  women, 
especially  when  they  all  talk  together?" 

The  idea  seemed  so  original  and  yet  so  true  that  it  made 
me  laugh;  we  both  laughed.  At  that  moment  there  came  a 
still  louder,  noisier  clamour  of  voices  from  the  villagers, 

"The  rooks  mayn't  mind,"  said  the  little  girl,  pointing 
upwards  to  the  large  rookery  close  by,  whence  came  a 
noise  marvellously  like  that  made  by  the  field-workers.  "But 
I'm  afraid  the  blackbirds  and  thrushes  can't  like  it.  I  do  so 
wonder  what  they  say  about  it" 

After  we  had  left  the  rookery  behind  us  and  the  noise  of 
the  villagers  had  grown  fainter,  we  stood  and  listened  to  the 
blackbirds  and  thrushes.  She  looked  so  joyous  that  I  could 
not  help  saving,  "Little  girl,  I  think  vou're  verv  happv,  ain't 
you?" 

"Not  quite,"  she  said,  as  though  answering  a  question  she 
had  just  been  putting  to  herself.  "There's  not  enough  wind." 

"Then  do  yoii  like  the  wind?"  I  said  in  surprise  and 
delight. 

"Oh,  I  love  it!"  she  said  rapturously.  "I  can't  be  quite 
happy  without  it,  can  youf  I  like  to  'run  up  the  hills  in 
the  wind  and  sing  to  it.  That's  when  I'm  happiest.  I 
couldn't  live  long  without  the  wind." 

Now  it  had  been  a  deep-rooted  conviction  of  mine  that 
none  but  the  gulls  and  I  really  and  truly  liked  the  wind, 
"Fishermen  are  mufTs,"  I  used  to  say;  "they  talk  about  the 
wind  as  though  it  were  an  enemy,  just  because  it  drowns 
one  or  two  of  'em  now  and  then.  Anybody  can  like  sun- 
shine; mufifs  can  like  sunshine;  it  takes  a  gull  or  a  man  to 
like  the  wind!" 


The  Cymric  Child  17 

Such  had  been  my  egotism.  But  here  was  a  girl  who  Hked 
it!  We  reached  the  gate  of  the  garden  in  front  of  Tom's 
cottage,  and  then  we  both  stopped,  looking  over  the  neatly- 
kept  flower-garden  and  the  white  thatched  cottage  behind  it, 
up  the  walls  of  which  the  grape-vine  leaves  were  absorbing 
the  brilliance  of  the  sunlight  and  softening  it.  Wynne  was 
a  gardener  as  well  as  an  organist,  and  had  gardens  both  in 
the  front  and  at  the  back  of  his  cottage,  which  was  sur- 
rounded by  fruit-trees.  Drunkard  as  he  was,  his  two  pas- 
sions, music  and  gardening,  saved  him  from  absolute  degra- 
dation and  ruin.  His  garden  was  beautifully  kept,  and  I 
have  seen  him  deftly  pruning  his  vines  when  in  such  a  state 
of  drink  that  it  was  wonderful  how  he  managed  to  hold  a 
pruning-knife.  Winifred  opened  the  gate,  and  we  passed  in. 
Wynne's  little  terrier.  Snap,  came  barking  to  meet  us. 

There  was  an  air  of  delicious  peacefulness  about  the  gar- 
den. This  also  tended  to  soften  that  hardness  of  temper 
which  only  cripples  who  have  once  rejoiced  in  their  strength 
can  possibly  know,  I  hope. 

"I  like  to  see  you  look  so,"  said  the  little  girl,  as  I  melted 
entirely  under  these  sweet  influences,  "You  looked  so  cross 
before  that  I  was  nearly  afraid  of  you." 

And  she  took  hold  of  my  hand,  not  hesitatingly,  but 
frankly.  The  little  fingers  clasped  mine.  I  looked  at  them. 
They  were  much  more  sun-tanned  than  her  face.  The  little 
rosy  nails  were  shaped  like  filbert  nuts. 

"Why  were  you  not  quite  afraid  of  me?"  I  asked. 

"Because,"  said  she,  "under  the  crossness  I  saw  that  you 
had  great  love-eyes  like  Snap's  all  the  while.  /  saw  it!"  she 
said,  and  laughed  with  delight  at  her  great  wisdom.  Then 
she  said  with  a  sudden  gravity,  "You  didn't  mean  to  make 
my  father  cry,  did  you,  little  boy?" 

"No,"  I  said. 

"And  you  love  him?"  said  she. 

I  hesitated,  for  I  had  never  told  a  lie  in  my  life.  My 
business  relations  with  Tom  had  been  of  an  entirely  unsatis- 
factory character,  and  the  idea  of  any  one's  loving  the  beery 
scamp  presented  itself  in  a  ludicrous  light.  I  got  out  of  the 
difificulty  by  saying: 

"I  mean  to  love  Tom  very  much,  if  I  can." 

The  answer  did  not  appear  to  be  entirely  satisfactory  to 
tlie  little  girl,  but  it  soon  seemed  to  pass  from  her  mind. 

That  was  the  most  delightful  afternoon  I  had  ever  spent 


1 8  Aylwin 

in  my  life.  We  seemed  to  become  old  friends  in  a  few  min- 
utes, and  in  an  hour  or  two  she  was  the  closest  friend  I  had 
on  earth.  Not  all  the  little  shoeless  friends  in  Raxton,  not 
all  the  beautiful  sea-gulls  I  loved,  not  all  the  sunshine  and 
wind  upon  the  sands,  not  all  the  wild  bees  in  Grayling-ham 
Wilderness,  could  give  the  companionship  this  child  could 
give.  My  flesh  tingled  with  delight.  (And  yet  all  the  while 
I  was  not  Hal  the  conqueror  of  ragamuffins,  but  Hal  the 
cripple!) 

"Shall  we  go  and  get  some  strawberries?"  she  said,  as 
we  passed  to  the  back  of  the  house.    "They  are  quite  ripe." 

But  my  countenance  fell  at  this.  I  was  obliged  to  tell  her 
that  I  could  not  stoop. 

"Ah!  but  /  can,  and  I  will  pluck  them  and  give  them  to 
you.    I  should  like  to  do  it.    Do  let  me,  there's  a  good  boy." 

I  consented,  and  hobbled  by  her  side  to  the  verge  of  the 
strawberry-beds.  But  when  I  foolishly  tried  to  follow  her,  I 
stuck  ignominiously,  with  my  crutches  sunk  deep  in  the  soft 
mould  of  rotten  leaves.  Here  was  a  trial  for  the  conquering 
hero  of  the  coast,  I  looked  into  her  face  to  see  if  there  was 
not,  at  last,  a  laugh  upon  it.  That  cruel  human  laugh  was 
my  only  dread.  To  everything  but  ridicule  I  had  hardened 
myself;  but  against  that  I  felt  helpless. 

I  looked  into  her  face  to  see  if  she  was  laughing  at  my 
lameness.  No:  her  brows  were  merely  knit  with  anxiety  as 
to  how  she  might  best  relieve  me.  This  surpassingly  beauti- 
ful child,  then,  had  evidently  accepted  me — lameness  and  all 
— crutches  and  all — as  a  subject  of  peculiar  interest. 

How  I  loved  her  as  I  put  my  hand  upon  her  firm  little 
shoulders,  while  I  extricated  first  one  crutch  and  then  an- 
other, and  at  last  got  upon  the  hard  path  again! 

When  she  had  landed  me  safely,  she  returned  to  the  straw- 
berry-bed, and  began  busily  gathering  the  fruit,  which  she 
brought  to  me  in  her  sunburnt  hands,  stained  to  a  bright 
pink  by  the  ripe  fruit.  Such  a  charm  did  she  throw  over 
me,  that  at  last  I  actually  consented  to  her  putting  the  fruit 
into  my  mouth. 

She  then  told  me  Avith  much  gravity  that  she  knew  how  to 
"cure  crutches."  There  was,  she  said,  a  famous  "crutches- 
well"  in  Wales,  kept  by  St.  Winifred  (most  likely  an  aunt  of 
hers,  being  of  the  same  name),  whose  water  could  "cure 
crutches."  When  she  came  from  Wales  again  she  would 
"be  sure  to  brine:  a  bottle  of  'crutches-water.' "     She  told 


The  Cymric  Child  19 

me  also  much  about  Snowdon  (near  which  she  Hved),  and 
how,  on  misty  days,  she  used  to  "make  believe  that  she  was 
the  Lady  of  the  Mist,  and  that  she  was  going  to  visit  the 
Tywysog  o'r  Niwl,  the  Prince  of  the  Mist ;  it  was  so  nice !" 

I  do  not  know  how  long  we  kept  at  this,  but  the  organist 
returned  and  caught  her  in  the  very  act  of  feeding  me.  To 
be  caught  in  this  ridiculous  position,  even  by  a  drunken  man, 
was  more  than  I  could  bear,  however,  and  I  turned  and  left. 

As  I  recall  that  walk  home  along  Wilderness  Road,  I  live 
it  as  thoroughly  as  I  did  then.  I  can  see  the  rim  of  the  sink- 
ing sun  burning  fiery  red  low  down  between  the  trees  on  the 
left,  and  then  suddenly  dropping  out  of  sight.  I  can  see  on 
the  right  the  lustre  of  the  high-tide  sea.  I  can  hear  the  "che- 
eu-chew,  che-eu-chew,"  of  the  wood-pigeons  in  Grayling- 
ham  Wood.  I  can  smell  the  very  scent  of  the  bean  flowers 
drinking  in  the  evening  dews.  I  did  not  feel  that  I  was  go- 
ing home  as  the  sharp  gables  of  the  Hall  gleamed  through 
the  chestnut-trees.  My  home  for  evermore  was  the  breast 
of  that  lovely  child,  between  whom  and  myself  such  a 
strange  delicious  sympathy  had  sprung  up.  I  felt  there  was 
no  other  home  for  me. 

"Why,  child,  where  have  you  been?"  said  my  mother,  as 
she  saw  me  trying  to  slip  to  bed  unobserved,  in  order  that 
happiness  such  as  mine  might  not  be  brought  into  coarse 
contact  with  servants.  "Child,  where  have  you  been,  and 
what  has  possessed  you?  Your  face  is  positively  shining 
with  joy,  and  your  eyes,  they  alarm  me,  they  are  so  unnatu- 
rally bright.    I  hope  you  are  not  going  to  have  an  illness." 

I  did  not  tell  her,  but  went  to  my  room,  which  now  was 
on  the  ground  floor,  and  sat  watching  the  rooks  sailing 
home  in  the  sunset  till  the  last  one  had  gone,  and  the  voices 
of  the  blackbirds  grew  less  clamorous,  and  the  trees  began 
to  look  larger  and  larger  in  the  dusk. 


IV. 

The  next  day  I  was  again  at  Wynne's  cottage,  and  the  next, 
and  the  next.  We  two,  Winifred  and  I,  used  to  stroll  out 
together  through  the  narrow  green  lanes,  and  over  the 
happy  fields,  and  about  the  Wilderness  and  the  wood,  and 
along  the  clififs,  and  then  down  the  gangway  at  Flinty  Point 


20  Aylwin 

(the  only  gangway  that  was  firm  enough  to  support  my 
crutches,  Winifred  aiding  me  with  the  skill  of  a  woman  and 
the  agility  of  a  child),  and  then  along  the  flints  below  Flinty 
Point.  She  rapidly  fell  into  my  habits.  She  was  an  adept 
in  finding  birds'  nests  and  wild  honey;  and  though  she 
would  not  consent  to  my  taking  the  eggs,  ^he  had  not  the 
same  compunction  about  the  honey,  and  she  only  regretted 
with  me  that  we  could  not  be  exactly  like  St.  John,  as  Gray- 
lingham  Wilderness  yielded  no  locusts  to  eat  with  the 
honey.  Winifred,  though  the  most  healthy  of  children,  had 
a  passion  for  the  deserted  church  on  the  clifTs,  and  for  the 
desolate  churchyard. 

It  was  one  of  those  flint  and  freestone  churches  that  are 
sprinkled  along  the  coast.  Situated  as  it  was  at  the  back  of 
a  curve  cut  by  the  water  into  the  end  of  a  peninsula  running 
far  into  the  sea,  the  tower  looked  in  the  distance  like  a  light- 
house. I  observed  after  the  first  day  of  our  meeting  that 
Winifred  never  would  m.ount  the  tower  steps  again.  And  I 
knew  why.  So  delicate  were  her  feelings,  so  acute  did  her 
kind  little  heart  m.ake  her,  that  she  would  not  mount  steps 
which  I  could  never  mount. 

Not  that  Winifred  looked  upon  me  as  her  little  lover. 
There  was  not  much  of  the  sentimental  in  her.  Once  when 
I  asked  her  on  the  sands  if  I  might  be  her  lover,  she  took 
an  entirely  practical  view  of  the  question,  and  promptly 
replied  "Certumly,"  adding,  however,  like  the  wise  little 
woman  I  always  found  her,  that  she  "wasn't  quite  sure  she 
knew  what  a  lover  was,  but  if  it  was  anything  z'ery  nice  she 
should  certumly  like  me  to  be  it." 

It  was  the  child's  originality  of  manner  that  people  found 
so  captivating.  One  of  her  many  little  tricks  and  ways  of 
an  original  quaintness  was  her  habit  of  speaking  of  herself 
in  the  third  person,  like  the  merest  baby.  "Winifred  likes 
this,"  "Winifred  doesn't  like  that,"  were  phrases  that  had 
an  irresistible  fascination  for  me. 

Another  fascinating  characteristic  of  hers  was  connected 
with  her  superstitions.  Whenever  on  parting  with  her  I 
exclaimed,  as  I  often  did,  "Oh,  what  a  lovely  day  we  have 
had,  Winifred!"  she  would  look  expectantly  into  my  eyes, 

murmuring,  "And — and "    This  meant  that  I  was  to  say, 

"And  shall  have  many  more  such  days,"  as  though  there 
v/ere  a  prophetic  power  in  words. 

She  talked  with  entire  seriousness  of  having  seen  in  a 


The  Cymric  Child  21 

place  called  Fairy  Glen  in  Wales  the  Tylwyth  Teg,  And 
when  I  told  her  of  Oberon  and  Titania,  and  A  Midsummer 
Night's  Dream,  whose  acquaintance  I  had  made  through 
Lamb's  Tales  from  Shakspeare,  she  said  that  one  bright 
moonlight  night  she,  in  the  company  of  two  of  her  Gypsy 
playmates,  Rhona  Boswell  and  a  girl  called  Sinfi,  had  visited 
this  same  Fairy  Glen,  when  they  saw  the  Fairy  Queen  alone 
on  a  ledge  of  rock,  dressed  in  a  green  kirtle  with  a  wreath 
of  golden  leaves  about  her  head. 

Another  subject  upon  which  I  loved  to  hear  her  talk  was 
that  of  the  "Knockers"  of  Snowdon,  the  guardians  of  un- 
discovered copper  mines,  who  sometimes  by  knocking  on 
the  rocks  gave  notice  to  individuals  they  favoured  of  undis- 
covered copper,  but  these  favoured  ones  were  mostly  chil- 
dren who  chanced  to  wander  up  Snowdon  by  themselves. 
She  had,  she  said,  not  only  heard  but  seen  these  Knockers. 
They  were  thick-set  dwarfs,  as  broad  as  they  were  long. 
One  Knocker,  an  elderly  female,  had  often  played  with  her 
on  the  hills.  Knockers'  Llyn,  indeed,  was  very  much  on 
Winifred's  mind.  When  a  golden  cloud,  like  the  one  to 
which  she  was  singing  her  song  at  the  time  I  first  saw 
her,  shone  over  a  person's  head  at  Knockers'  Llyn,  it  was 
a  sign  of  good  fortune.  She  was  sure  that  it  was  so, 
because  the  Welsh  people  believed  it,  and  so  did  the 
Gypsies. 

Not  a  field  or  a  hedgerow  was  unfamiliar  to  us.  We  were 
most  learned  in  the  structure  of  birds'  nests,  in  the  various 
colours  of  birds'  eggs,  and  in  insect  architecture.  In  all  the 
habits  of  the  wild  animals  of  the  meadows  we  were  most 
profound  little  naturalists. 

Winifred  could  in  the  morning,  after  the  dews  were  gone, 
tell  by  the  look  of  a  buttercup  or  a  daisy  what  kind  of 
weather  was  at  hand,  when  the  most  cunning  peasant  was 
deceived  by  the  hieroglyphics  of  the  sky,  and  the  most 
knowing  seaman  could  "make  nothing  of  the  wind." 

Her  life,  in  fact,  had  been  spent  in  the  open  air. 

There  were  people  staying  at  the  Hall,  and  they  and 
Frank  engrossed  all  my  mother's  attention.  At  least,  she 
did  not  appear  to  notice  my  absence  from  home. 

My  brother  Frank,  however,  was  not  so  unobservant  (he 
was  two  years  older  than  myself).  Early  one  morning,  be- 
fore breakfast,  curiosity  led  him  to  follow  me,  and  he  came 
upon  us  in  Graylingham  Wood  as  we  were  sitting  under  a 


22  Aylwin 

tree  close  to  the  cliff,  eating  the  wild  honey  we  had  found  in 
the  Wilderness. 

He  stood  there  swinging  a  ground-ash  cane,  and  looking 
at  her  in  a  lordly  patronising  way,  the  very  personification 
no  doubt  of  boyish  beauty.  I  became  troubled  to  see  him 
look  so  handsome.  The  contrast  between  him  and  a  cripple 
was  not  fair,  I  thought,  as  I  observed  an  expression  of  pass- 
ing admiration  on  little  Winifred's  face.  Yet  I  thought  there 
was  not  the  pleased  smile  with  which  she  had  first  greeted 
me,  and  a  weight  of  anxiety  was  partially  removed,  for  it 
had  now  become  quite  evident  to  me  that  I  was  as  much  in 
love  as  any  swain  of  eighteen — it  had  become  quite  evident 
that  without  Winifred  the  poor  little  shattered  sea-gull  must 
perish  altogether.    She  was  literally  my  world. 

Frank  came  and  sat  down  with  us,  and  made  himself  as 
agreeable  as  possible.  He  tried  to  enter  into  our  play,  but 
we  were  too  slow  for  him;  he  soon  became  restless  and  im- 
patient.   "Oh  bother!"  he  said,  and  got  up  and  left  us. 

I  drew  a  sigh  of  relief  when  he  was  gone. 

"Do  you  like  my  brother,  Winifred?"  I  said. 

"Yes,"  she  said. 

"Why?" 

"Because  he  is  so  pretty  and  so  nimble.     I  believe  he 

could  run  up "  and  then  she  stopped;  but  I  knew  what 

the  complete  sentence  would  have  been.  She  was  going  to 
say:  "I  believe  he  could  run  up  the  gang^vays  without  stop- 
ping to  take  breath." 

Here  was  a  stab;  but  she  did  not  notice  the  effect  of  her 
unfinished  sentence.  Then  a  question  came  from  me 
involuntarily. 

"Winifred,"  I  said,  "do  vou  like  him  as  well  as  you  like 
me?" 

"Oh  no,"  she  said,  in  a  tone  of  wonderment  that  such  a 
question  should  be  asked. 

"But  /  am  not  pretty  and " 

"Oh,  but  you  arc!"  she  said  eagerly,  interrupting  me. 

"But,"  I  said,  with  a  choking  sensation  in  my  voice,  "I 
am  lame,"  and  I  looked  at  the  crutches  lying  among  the 
ferns  beside  me. 

"Ah,  but  I  like  you  all  the  better  for  being  lame,"  she 
said,  nestling  up  to  me. 

"But  you  like  nimble  boys,"  I  said,  "such  as  Frank." 

She  looked  puzzled.    The  anomaly  of  liking  nimble  boys 


The  Cymric  Child  23 

and  crippled  boys  at  the  same  time  seemed  to  strike  her. 
Yet  she  felt  it  was  so,  though  it  was  difficult  to  explain  it. 

"Yes,  I  do  like  nimble  boys,"  she  said  at  last,  plucking 
with  her  fingers  at  a  blade  of  grass  she  held  between  her 
teeth,  "But  I  think  I  like  lame  boys  better,  that  is  if  they 
are — if  they  are — you." 

I  gave  an  exclamation  of  delight.  But  she  was  two  years 
younger  than  I,  and  scarcely,  I  suppose,  understood  it. 

"He  is  very  pretty,"  she  said  meditatively,  "but  he  has  not 
got  love-eyes  like  you  and  Snap,  and  I  don't  think  I  could 
love  any  little  boy  so  very,  very  much  now  who  wasn't 
lame." 

She  loved  me  in  spite  of  my  lameness;  she  loved  me  be- 
cause I  was  lame,  so  that  if  I  had  not  fallen  from  the  cliffs, 
if  I  had  sustained  my  glorious  position  among  the  boys  of 
Raxton  and  Graylingham  as  "Fighting  Hal,"  I  might  never 
have  won  little  Winifred's  love.  Here  was  a  revelation  of 
the  mingled  yarn  of  life,  that  I  remember  struck  me  even  at 
that  childish  age. 

I  began  to  think  I  might,  in  spite  of  the  undoubted 
crutches,  resume  my  old  place  as  the  luckiest  boy  along  the 
sands.  She  loved  me  because  I  was  lame!  Those  who  say 
that  physical  infirmity  does  not  feminise  the  character  have 
not  had  my  experience.  No  more  talk  for  me  that  morning. 
In  such  a  mood  as  that  there  can  be  no  talk.  I  sat  in  a 
silent  dream,  save  when  a  sweet  sob  of  delight  would  come 
up  like  a  bubble  from  the  heaving  waters  of  my  soul.  I  had 
passed  into  that  rare  and  high  mood  when  life's  afflictions 
are  turned  by  love  to  life's  deepest,  holiest  joys.  I  had  begun 
early  to  learn  and  know  the  gamut  of  the  affections. 

"When  you  leave  me  here  and  go  home  to  Wales  you  will 
never  forget  me,  Winnie?" 

"Never,  never!"  she  said,  as  she  helped  me  from  the  ferns 
which  were  still  as  wet  with  dew  as  though  it  had  been  rain- 
ing. "I  will  think  of  you  every  night  before  I  go  to  sleep, 
and  always  end  my  prayers  as  I  did  that  first  night  after  I 
saw  you  so  lonely  in  the  churchyard." 

"And  how  is  that,  Winnie?"  I  said,  as  she  adjusted  my 
crutches  for  me. 

"After  I've  said  'Amen,'  I  always  say,  'And.  dear  Lord 
Jesus,  don't  forget  to  love  dear  Henry,  who  can't  get  up  the 
gangways  without  me,'  and  I  will  say  that  every  night  as 
long  as  i  live." 


24  Aylwin 

From  that  morning  I  considered  her  altogether  mine.  Her 
speaking  of  me  as  the  "dear  Httle  Enghsh  boy,"  however, 
as  she  did,  marred  the  delight  her  words  gave  me.  I  had 
from  the  first  observed  that  the  child's  strongest  passion 
was  a  patriotism  of  a  somewhat  fiery  kind.  The  word  Eng- 
lish in  her  mouth  seemed  sometimes  a  word  of  reproach: 
it  was  the  name  of  the  race  that  in  the  past  had  invaded  her 
sacred  Snowdonia. 

I  afterwards  learnt  that  her  aunt  was  answerable  for  this 
senseless  prejudice, 

"Winnie,"  I  said,  "don't  you  wish  I  was  a  Welsh  boy?" 

"Oh,  yes,"  she  said.    "Don't  you?" 

I  made  no  answer. 

She  looked  into  my  face  and  said,  "And  yet  I  don't  think  1 
could  love  a  Welsh  boy  as  I  love  you." 

She  then  repeated  to  me  a  verse  of  a  Welsh  song,  which 
of  course  I  did  not  understand  a  word  of  until  she  told  me 
what  it  meant  in  English. 

It  was  an  address  to  Snow^don,  and  ran  something  like 
this— 

"Mountain-wild  Snowdon  for  me! 
Sweet  silence  there  for  the  harp, 
Where  loiter  the  ewes  and  the  lambs 
In  the  moss  and  the  rushes, 
Where  one's  song  goes  sounding  up! 
And  the  rocks  re-echo  it  higher  and  higher. 
In  the  height  where  the  eagles  live." 

In  this  manner  about  six  weeks  slid  away,  and  Winnie's 
visit  to  her  father  came  to  an  end.  I  ask,  how  can  people 
laugh  at  the  sorrows  of  childhood?  The  bitterness  of  my 
misery  as  I  sat  with  that  child  on  the  eve  of  her  departure 
for  Wales  (which  to  me  seemed  at  the  extreme  end  of  the 
earth)  was  almost  on  a  par  with  anything  I  have  since  suf- 
fered, and  that  is  indeed  saying  a  great  deal.  It  was  in 
Wynne's  cottage,  and  I  sat  on  the  floor  with  her  wet  cheeks 
close  to  mine,  saying,  "She  leaves  me  alone."  Tom  tried  to 
console  me  by  telling  me  that  Winifred  would  soon  come 
back. 

"But  when?"  I  said. 

"Next  year,"  said  Tom. 

He  might  as  well  have  said  next  century,  for  any  consola- 
tion it  gave  me.  The  idea  of  a  year  without  her  was  alto- 
gether beyond  my  grasp.    It  seemed  infinite. 


The  Cymric  Child  25 

Week  after  week  passed,  and  month  after  month,  and 
little  Winifred  was  always  in  my  thoughts.  Wynne's  cot- 
tage was  a  sacred  spot  to  me,  and  the  organist  the  most  in- 
teresting man  in  the  world.  I  never  tired  of  asking  him 
questions  about  her,  though  he,  as  I  soon  found,  knew 
scarcely  anything  concerning  her  and  what  she  was  doing, 
and  cared  less ;  for  love  of  drink  had  got  thoroughly  hold 
of  him. 

Letters  were  scarce  visitants  to  him,  and  I  believe  he 
never  used  to  hear  from  Wales  at  all. 


V. 

At  the  end  of  the  year  she  came  again,  and  I  had  about  a 
year  of  happiness,  I  was  with  her  every  day,  and  every  day 
she  grew  more  necessary  to  my  existence. 

It  was  at  this  time  that  I  made  the  acquaintance  of  Win- 
nie's friend  Rhona  Boswell,  a  charming  little  Gypsy  girl. 
Graylingham  Wood  and  Rington  Wood,  like  the  entire 
neighbourhood,  were  favourite  haunts  of  a  superior  kind  of 
Gypsies  called  Griengroes,  that  is  to  say,  horse-dealers. 
Their  business  was  to  buy  ponies  in  Wales  and  sell  them  in 
the  Eastern  Counties  and  the  East  Midlands.  Thus  it  was 
that  Winnie  had  known  many  of  the  East  Midland  Gypsies 
in  Wales.  Compared  with  Rhona  Boswell,  who  was  more  like 
a  fairy  than  a  child,  Winnie  seemed  quite  a  grave  little  per- 
son. Rhona's  limbs  were  always  on  the  move,  and  the  move- 
ment sprang  always  from  her  emotions.  Her  laugh  seemed 
to  ring  through  the  woods  like  silver  bells,  a  sound  that  it 
was  impossible  to  mistake  for  any  other.  The  laughter  of 
most  Gypsy  girls  is  full  of  music  and  of  charm,  and  yet 
Rhona's  laughter  was  a  sound  by  itself,  and  it  was  no  doubt 
this  which  afterwards  when  she  grew  up  attracted  my  kins- 
man, Percy  Aylwin,  towards  her.  It  seemed  to  emanate  not 
from  her  throat  merely,  but  from  her  entire  frame.  If  one 
could  imagine  a  strain  of  merriment  and  fun  blending  with 
the  ecstatic  notes  of  a  skylark  soaring  and  singing,  one  might 
form  some  idea  of  the  laugh  of  Rhona  Boswell.  Ah,  what 
days  they  were!  Rhona  would  come  from  Gypsy  Dell,  a 
romantic  place  in  Rington  Manor  some  miles  off,  especially 


26  Aylwin 

to  show  us  some  newly  devised  coronet  of  flowers  that  she 
had  been  weaving  for  herself.  This  induced  Winnie  to 
weave  for  herself  a  coronet  of  sea-weeds,  and  an  entire  morn- 
ing was  passed  in  grave  discussion  as  to  which  coronet  ex- 
celled the  other. 

A  year  had  made  a  great  difference  in  Winnie,  a  much 
greater  difference  than  it  had  made  in  me.  Her  aunt,  who 
was  no  doubt  a  well-informed  woman,  had  been  attending 
to  her  education.  In  a  single  year  she  had  taught  her  French 
so  thoroughly  that  Winnie  was  in  the  midst  of  Dumas's 
Monte  Crista.  And  apart  from  education  in  the  ordinary 
acceptation  of  the  word,  the  expansion  of  her  mind  had  been 
rapid  and  great. 

Her  English  vocabulary  was  now  far  above  mine,  far 
above  that  of  most  children  of  her  age.  This  I  discovered 
was  owing  to  the  fact  that  a  literary  English  lady  of  delicate 
health.  Miss  Dalrymple,  whose  slender  means  obliged  her 
to  leave  the  Capel  Curig  Hotel,  had  been  staying  at  the  cot- 
tage as  a  lodger.  She  had  taken  the  greatest  delight  in  edu- 
cating Winnie.  Of  course  Winnie  lost  as  well  as  gained  by 
this  change.  She  was  a  little  Welsh  rustic  no  longer,  but 
a  little  lady  unusually  well  equipped,  as  far  as  education 
went,  for  taking  her  place  in  the  world. 

She  understood  fully  now  what  I  meant  when  I  told  her 
that  we  were  betrothed,  and  again  showed  that  mingling  of 
child-wisdom  and  poetry  which  characterised  her  by  sug- 
gesting that  we  should  be  married  on  Snowdon,  and  that  her 
wedding-dress  should  be  the  green  kirtle  and  wreath  of  the 
fairies,  and  that  her  bridesmaids  should  be  her  Gypsy 
friends,  Sinfi  Lovell  and  Rhona  Boswell.  This  I  acceded  to 
with  alacrity. 

It  was  now  that  I  fully  realised  for  the  first  time  her  ex- 
traordinary gift  of  observation  and  her  power  of  describing 
what  she  had  observed  in  the  graphic  language  that  can 
never  be  taught  save  by  the  teacher  Nature  herself.  In  a 
dozen  picturesque  words  she  would  flash  upon  my  very 
senses  the  scene  that  she  was  describing.  So  vividly  did  she 
bring  before  my  eyes  the  scenery  of  North  Wales,  that  when 
at  last  I  went  there  it  seemed  quite  familiar  to  me.  And  so 
in  describing  individuals,  her  pictures  of  them  were  like 
photographs. 

Graylingham  Wood  was  our  favourite  haunt.  This  place 
and  the  adjoining  piece  of  waste  land,  called  the  Wilderness, 


\  The  Cymric  Child  27 

had  for  us  all  the  charms  of  a  primeval  forest.  Here  in  the 
early  spring  we  used  to  come  and  watch  the  first  violet  up- 
lifting its  head  from  the  dark  green  leaves  behind  the  mossy 
boles,  and  listen  for  the  first  note  of  the  blackcap,  the  night- 
ingale's herald,  and  the  first  coo  of  the  wood-pigeons  among 
the  bare  and  newly-budding  trees.  And  here,  in  the  sum- 
mer, we  used  to  come  as  soon  as  breakfast  was  over  with 
as  many  story-books  as  we  could  carry,  and  sit  on  the  grass 
and  revel  in  the  wonders  of  the  Arabian  Nights,  the  Tales  of 
the  Genii,  and  the  Seven  Champions  of  Christendom,  till  all 
the  leafy  alleys  of  the  woods  were  glittering  with  armed 
knights  and  Sindbads  and  Aladdins.  The  story  of  Camaral- 
zaman  and  Badoura  was,  I  think,  Winnie's  chief  favourite. 
She  could  repeat  it  almost  word  for  word.  The  idea  of  the 
two  lovers  being  carried  to  each  other  by  genii  through  the 
air  and  over  the  mountain  tops  had  an  especial  fascination 
for  her.  I  was  Camaralzaman  and  she  Badoura,  and  the 
genii  would  carry  me  to  her  as  she  sat  by  Knockers'  Llyn, 
or,  as  she  called  it,  Llyn  Coblynau,  on  the  lower  slopes  of 
Snowdon. 

But  above  all,  there  was  the  sea  on  the  other  side  of  the 
wood,  of  the  presence  of  which  we  were  always  conscious — 
the  sea,  of  which  we  could  often  catch  glimpses  between  the 
trees,  lending  a  sense  of  freedom  and  wonder  and  romance 
such  as  no  landscape  can  lend.  Our  great  difficulty  of 
course  was  in  connection  with  my  lameness.  Few  children 
would  have  tried  to  convey  a  pair  of  crutches  and  a  lame  leg 
down  the  cliff  to  the  long,  level,  brown  sands  that  lay,  farther 
than  the  eye  could  reach,  stretched  beneath  miles  on  miles  01 
brown  crumbling  cliffs,  whose  jagged  pointsand  indentations 
had  the  kind  of  spectral  look  peculiar  to  that  coast.  For, 
alas !  the  holy  water  Winifred  brought  did  not  "cure  the 
crutches."  Yet  we  used  to  master  the  difficulty,  always 
selecting  the  firmer  gangway  at  Flinty  Point,  and  always 
waiting,  before  making  the  attempt,  until  there  was  no  one 
near  to  see  us  toiling  down.  Once  down  on  the  hard  sands 
just  below  the  Point,  we  were  happy,  paddling  and  enjoy- 
ing ourselves  till  the  sunset  told  us  that  we  must  begin  our 
herculean  labour  of  hoisting  the  leg  and  crutches  up  the 
gangway  back  to  the  wood.  I  have  performed  many  athletic 
feats  since  my  cure,  but  nothing  comparable  to  the  feat  of 
climbing  with  crutches  up  those  paths  of  yielding  sand.  To 
myself,  now,  it  seems  almost  incredible  that  it  was  ever 


28  Aylwin 

achieved,  nor  could  it  have  been  done  without  the  aid  of 
so  active  and  courageous  a  friend  as  Winifred. 

We  knew  Nature  in  all  her  moods.  In  every  aspect  we 
found  the  sea,  the  wood,  and  the  meadows,  happy  and  beau- 
tiful— in  winter  as  in  summer,  in  storm  as  in  sunshine.  In 
the  foggy  days  of  November,  in  the  sharp  winds  of  March, 
in  the  snows  and  sleet  and  rain  of  February,  we  used  to  hear 
other  people  complain  of  the  bad  weather;  we  used  to  hear 
them  fret  for  change.  But  we  despised  them  for  their  ig- 
norance where  we  were  so  learned.  There  was  no  bad 
weather  for  us.  In  March,  what  so  delicious  as  breasting 
together  the  brave  wind,  and  feeling  it  tingle  our  cheeks  and 
beat  our  ears  till  we  laughed  at  each  other  with  joy?  In 
rain,  what  so  delicious  as  to  stand  under  a  tree  or  behind  a 
hedge  and  listen  to  the  drops  pattering  overhead  among  the 
leaves,  and  see  the  fields  steaming  up  to  meet  them?  Then 
again  the  soft  falling  of  snow  upon  the  lonely  fields,  while 
the  very  sheep  looked  brown  against  the  whiteness  gather- 
ing round  them.    All  beautiful  to  us  two,  and  beloved! 


VI. 

"But  where  was  this  little  boy's  mother  all  this  time?"  you 
naturally  ask;  "where  was  his  father?  In  a  word,  who 
was  he?  and  what  were  his  surroundings?" 

I  will  answer  these  queries  in  as  brief  a  fashion  as  possible. 

My  father,  Philip  Aylwin,  belonged  to  a  branch  of  an 
ancient  family  which  had  been  satirically  named  by  another 
branch  of  the  same  family  "The  Proud  Aylwins." 

It  is  a  singular  thing  that  it  was  the  proud  Aylwins  who 
had  a  considerable  strain  of  Gypsy  blood  in  their  veins.  My 
great-grandfather  had  married  Fenella  Stanley,  the  famous 
Gypsy  beauty,  about  whom  so  much  was  written  in  the 
newspapers  and  magazines  of  that  period,  and  whose  por- 
trait in  the  character  of  the  Sibyl  of  Snowdon  was  painted 
by  the  great  portrait  painter  of  that  time. 

This  picture  still  hangs  in  the  portrait  gallery  of  Raxton 
Hall. 

As  a  child  it  had  an  immense  attraction  for  me,  and  no 
wonder,  for  it  was  original  to  actual  eccentricity.     It  de- 


The  Cymric  Child  29 

picted  a  dark  young  woman  of  dazzling  beauty  standing  at 
break  of  day  among  mountain  scenery,  holding  a  musical 
instrument  of  the  guitar  kind,  but  shaped  like  a  violin,  upon 
the  lower  strings  of  which  she  was  playing  with  the  thumb 
of  the  left  hand. 

Through  the  misty  air  were  seen  all  kinds  of  shadowy 
shapes,  whose  eyes  were  fixed  on  the  player.  I  used  to 
stand  and  look  at  this  picture  by  the  hour  together,  fasci- 
nated by  the  strange  beauty  of  the  singer's  face  and  the 
mysterious,  prophetic  expression  of  the  eyes. 

And  I  used  to  try  to  imagine  what  tune  it  was  that  could 
call  from  the  mountain  air  the  "flower  sprites"  and  "sun- 
shine elves"  of  morning  on  the  mountain. 

Fenella  Stanley  seems  in  her  later  life  to  have  set  up  as  a 
positive  seeress,  and  I  infer  from  certain  family  papers  and 
diaries  in  my  possession  that  she  was  the  very  embodiment 
of  the  wildest  Romany  beliefs  and  superstitions. 

I  first  became  conscious  of  the  mysterious  links  which 
bound  me  to  my  Gypsy  ancestress  by  reading  one  of  her 
letters  to  my  great-grandfather,  who  had  taught  her  to 
write:  nothing  apparently  could  have  taught  her  to  spell.  It 
was  written  during  a  short  stay  she  was  making  away  from 
him  in  North  Wales.  It  described  in  the  simplest  (and  often 
the  most  uncouth)  words  that  Nature-ecstasy  which  the 
Romanies  seem  to  feel  in  the  woodlands.  It  came  upon  me 
like  a  revelation,  for  it  was  the  first  time  I  had  ever  seen 
embodied  in  words  the  sensations  which  used  to  come  to 
me  in  the  Graylingham  Wood  or  on  the  river  that  ran 
through  it.  After  long  basking  among  the  cowslips,  or  be- 
neath the  whispering  branches  of  an  elm,  whose  shade  I  was 
robbing  from  the  staring  cows  around,  or  lying  on  my  back 
in  a  boat  on  the  river,  listening  to  the  birds  and  the  insect 
hum  and  all  the  magic  music  of  summer  in  the  woodlands, 
I  used  all  at  once  to  feel  as  though  the  hand  of  a  great  en- 
chantress were  being  waved  before  me  and  around  me.  The 
wheels  of  thought  would  stop;  all  the  senses  would  melt 
into  one,  and  I  would  float  on  a  tide  of  unspeakable  joy,  a 
tide  whose  waves  were  waves  neither  of  colour,  nor  perfume, 
nor  melody,  but  new  waters  born  of  the  mixing  of  these; 
and,  through  a  language  deeper  than  words  and  deeper  than 
thoughts,  I  would  seem  carried  at  last  close  to  an  actual 
consciousness — a  consciousness  which,  to  my  childish 
dreams,  seemed  drawing  me  close  to  the  bosom  of  a  mother 


3©  Aylwin 

whose  face  would  brighten  into  that  of  Fenella.  My  father 
Hved  upon  moderate  means  in  the  Httle  seaside  town  of 
Raxton.  My  mother  was  his  second  wife,  a  distant  cousin 
of  the  same  name.  She  was  not  one  of  the  "Proud  Ayl- 
wins,"  and  yet  she  must  have  had  more  pride  in  her  heart 
than  all  the  "Proud  Aylwins"  put  together.  Her  feeling  in 
relation  to  the  strain  of  Gypsy  blood  in  the  family  into  which 
she  had  married  was  that  of  positive  terror.  She  associated 
the  word  "Gypsy"  with  everything  that  is  wild,  passionate 
and  lawless. 

One  great  cause  undoubtedly  of  her  partiality  for  Frank 
and  her  dislike  of  me  was  that  Frank's  blue-eyed  Saxon  face 
showed  no  sign  whatever  of  the  Romany  strain,  while  my 
swarthy  face  did. 

As  I  write  this,  she  lives  before  me  with  more  vividness 
than  my  father,  for  the  reason  that  her  character  during  my 
childhood,  before  I  came  to  know  my  father  thoroughly — 
before  I  came  to  know  what  a  marvellous  man  he  was — 
seemed  to  be  a  thousand  times  more  vivid  than  his.  With 
her  bright  grey  eyes,  her  patrician  features,  I  shall  see  her 
while  memory  lasts.  The  only  differences  that  ever  arose 
between  my  father  and  my  mother  were  connected  with  the 
fact  that  my  father  had  had  a  former  wife.  Now  and  then 
(not  often)  my  mother  would  lose  her  stoical  self-command, 
and  there  would  come  from  her  an  explosion  of  jealous 
anger,  stormy  and  terrible.  This  was  on  occasions  when  she 
perceived  that  my  father's  memory  retained  too  vividly  the 
impression  left  on  it  of  his  love  for  the  wife  who  was  dead — 
dead,  but  a  rival  still.  My  father  lived  in  mortal  fear  of  this 
jealousy.  Yet  my  mother  was  a  devoted  and  a  fond  wife.  I 
remember  in  especial  the  flash  that  would  come  from  her 
eyes,  the  fiery  flush  that  would  overspread  her  face,  when- 
ever she  saw  my  father  open  a  certain  antique  silver  casket 
which  he  kept  in  his  escritoire  when  at  home,  and  carried 
about  with  him  when  travelling.  The  casket  (I  soon  learned) 
contained  mementoes  of  his  first  wife,  between  whom  and 
himself  there  seems  to  have  been  a  deep  natural  sympathy 
such  as  did  not  exist  between  my  mother  and  him.  This 
first  wife  he  had  lost  under  peculiarly  painful  circumstances, 
which  it  is  necessary  that  I  should  briefly  narrate.  She  had 
been  drowned  before  his  very  eyes  in  that  cove  beneath  the 
church  which  I  have  already  described. 

The  semicircular  indentation  at  the  end  of  the  peninsula 


The  Cymric  Child  31 

or  headland  on  which  the  church  stood  was  specially  dan- 
gerous in  two  ways.  It  was  a  fatal  spot  where  sea  and  land 
were  equally  treacherous.  On  the  sands  the  tide,  and  on  the 
cliffs  the  landslip,  imperilled  the  lives  of  the  unwary.  Half, 
at  least,  of  the  churchyard  had  been  condemned  as  "danger- 
ous," and  this  very  same  spot  was  the  only  one  on  the  coast 
where  the  pedestrian  along  the  sands  ran  any  serious  risk  of 
being  entrapped  by  the  tide;  for  the  peninsula  on  which  the 
church  stood  jutted  out  for  a  considerable  distance  into  the 
sea,  and  then  was  scooped  out  in  the  form  of  a  boot-jack, 
and  so  caught  the  full  force  of  the  waves.  One  corner,  as 
already  mentioned,  was  called  Flinty  Point,  the  other  Needle 
Point,  and  between  these  two  points  there  was  no  gangway 
within  the  semicircle  up  the  wall  of  cliff.  Indeed,  within  the 
cove  the  cliff  was  perpendicular,  or  rather  overhanging,  as 
far  as  such  crumbling  earth  would  admit  of  its  overhanging. 
To  reach  a  gangway,  a  person  inside  the  cove  would  have 
to  leave  the  cliff  wall  for  the  open  sands,  and  pass  round 
either  Needle  Point  or  Flinty  Point.  Hence  the  cove  was 
sometimes  called  Mousetrap  Cove,  because  when  the  tide 
reached  so  high  as  to  touch  these  two  points,  a  person  on  the 
sands  within  the  cove  w^as  caught  as  in  a  mousetrap,  and  the 
only  means  of  extrication  was  by  boat  from  the  sea.  It  was 
the  irresistible  action  of  the  sea  upon  the  peninsula  (called 
Church  Headland)  that  had  doomed  church  and  churchyard 
to  certain  destruction. 

Dangerous  as  was  this  cove,  there  was  something  pe- 
culiarly fascinating  about  it.  The  black,  smooth,  undulating 
boulders  that  dotted  the  sand  here  and  there  formed  the 
most  delightful  seats  upon  which  to  meditate  or  read.  It 
was  a  favourite  spot  wdth  my  father's  first  wife,  who  had 
been  a  Swiss  governess.  She  was  a  great  reader  and  stu- 
dent, but  it  was  not  till  after  her  death  that  my  father  be- 
came one.  The  poor  lady  was  fond  of  bringing  her  books 
to  the  cove,  and  pursuing  her  studies  or  meditations  with  the 
sound  of  the  sea's  chime  in  her  ears.  My  father,  at  that  time 
I  believe  a  simple,  happy  country  squire,  but  showing  strong 
signs  of  Romany  ancestry,  had  often  warned  her  of  the  risk 
she  ran,  and  one  day  he  had  the  agony  of  seeing  her  from 
the  cliff  locked  in  the  cove,  and  drowning  before  his  eyes  ere 
a  boat  could  be  got,  while  he  and  the  coastguard  stood  pow- 
erless to  reach  her. 

The  effect  of  this  shock  demented  my  father  for  a  time. 


32  Aylwin 

How  it  was  that  he  came  to  marry  again  I  could  never  un- 
derstand. During  my  childhood  he  had,  as  far  as  I  could 
see,  no  real  sympathy  with  anything  save  his  own  dreams. 
In  after  years  I  came  to  know  the  truth.  He  was  kind 
enough  in  disposition,  but  he  looked  upon  us,  his  children, 
as  his  second  wife's  property,  his  dreams  as  his  own.  Once 
every  year  he  used  to  go  to  Switzerland  and  stay  there  for 
several  weeks;  and,  as  the  object  of  these  journeys  was  evi- 
dently to  revisit  the  old  spots  made  sacred  to  him  by  remi- 
niscences of  his  romantic  love  for  his  first  wife,  it  may  be 
readily  imagined  that  they  were  not  looked  upon  with  any 
favour  by  my  mother.  She  never  accompanied  him  on  these 
occasions,  nor  would  she  let  Frank  do  so — another  proof  of 
the  early  partiality  she  showed  for  my  brother.  As  I  was 
of  less  importance,  my  father  (previous  to  my  accident)  used 
to  take  me,  to  my  intense  delight  and  enjoyment;  but  dur- 
ing the  period  of  my  lameness  he  went  to  Switzerland  alone. 

■It  was  during  one  of  my  childish  visits  to  Switzerland  that 
I  learnt  an  important  fact  in  connection  with  my  father  and 
his  first  wife — the  fact  that  since  her  death  he  had  become  a 
mystic  and  had  joined  a  certain  sect  of  mystics  founded  by 
Lavater. 

This  is  how  I  came  to  know  it.  My  attention  had  been 
arrested  by  a  book  lying  on  my  father's  writing-table — a 
large  book  called  "The  Veiled  Queen,  by  Philip  Aylwin" — 
and  I  began  to  read  it.  The  statements  therein  were  of  an 
astounding  kind,  and  the  idea  of  a  beautiful  woman  behind 
a  veil  completely  fascinated  my  childish  mind.  And  the 
book  was  full  of  the  most  amazing  stories  collected  from  all 
kinds  of  outlandish  sources.  One  story,  called  "The  Flying 
Donkey  of  the  Ruby  Hills,"  riveted  my  attention  so  much 
that  it  possessed  me,  and  even  now  I  feel  that  I  can  repeat 
every  word  of  it.  It  was  a  story  of  a  donkey-driver,  who, 
having  lost  his  wife  Alawiyah,  went  and  lived  alone  in  the 
ruby  hills  of  Badakhshan,  where  the  Angel  of  Memory 
fashioned  for  him  out  of  his  own  sorrow  and  tears  an  image 
of  his  wife.  This  image  was  mistaken  by  a  townsman  named 
Hasan  for  his  own  wife,  and  Ja'afar  was  summoned  before 
the  Ka'dee.  Afterwards,  when  The  Veiled  Queen  came  into 
my  possession,  I  noticed  that  this  story  was  quoted  for 
motto  on  the  title-page: 

"  Then,'  quoth  the  Ka'dee,  laughing  until  his  grinders 
appeared,  'rather,  by  Allah,  would  I  take  all  the  punishment 


The  Cymric  Child  33 

thou  dreadest,  thou  most  false  donkey-driver  of  the  Ruby 
Hills,  than  believe  this  story  of  thine — ^this  mad,  mad  story, 
that  she  with  whom  thou  wast  seen  was  not  the  living  wife 
of  Hasan  here  (as  these  four  legal  witnesses  have  sworn), 
but  thine  own  dead  spouse,  Alawiyah,  refashioned  for  thee 
by  the  Angel  of  Memory  out  of  thine  own  sorrow  and  un- 
quenchable fountain  of  tears.' 

"Quoth  Ja'afar,  bowing  low  his  head:  'Bold  is  the  donkey- 
driver,  O  Ka'dee !  and  bold  the  ka'dee  who  dares  say  what 
he  will  believe,  what  disbelieve — not  knowing  in  any  wise 
the  mind  of  Allah — not  knowing  in  any  wise  his  own  heart 
and  what  it  shall  some  day  suffer.'  " 

This  story  so  absorbed  me  that  when  my  father  re-entered 
the  house  I  was  perfectly  unconscious  of  his  presence.  He 
took  the  book  from  me,  saying  it  was  not  a  book  for  chil- 
dren. It  possessed  my  mind  for  some  days.  What  I  had 
read  in  it  threw  light  upon  certain  conversations  in  French 
and  German  which  I  had  heard  between  my  father  and  his 
Swiss  friends,  and  the  fact  gradually  dawned  upon  me  that 
he  believed  himself  to  be  in  direct  communication  with  the 
spirit  of  his  dead  wife.  This  so  acted  upon  my  imagination 
that  I  began  to  feel  that  she  was  actually  alive,  though  in- 
visible. I  told  Frank  when  we  got  home  that  we  had  an- 
other mother  in  Switzerland,  and  that  our  father  went  to 
Switzerland  to  see  her. 

Having  at  that  time  a  passionate  love  for  my  mother  (a 
love  none  the  less  passionate  because  somewhat  coldly  re- 
turned), I  felt  great  anger  against  this  resuscitated  rival;  but 
Frank  only  laughed  and  called  me  a  stupid  little  fool. 

Luckily  Frank  forgot  my  story  in  a  minute,  and  it  never 
reached  my  mother's  ears. 

Some  years  after  this  an  odd  incident  occurred.  The  idea 
of  a  veiled  lady  had,  as  I  say,  fascinated  me.  One  Raxton 
fair-day  I  induced  Winnie  to  be  photographed  on  the  sands, 
wearing  a  crown  of  sea-flowers  in  imitation  of  Rhona  Bos- 
well's  famous  wild-flower  coronet,  and  a  necklace  of  sea- 
weed, with  Frank  and  another  boy  lifting  from  her  head 
a  long  white  veil  of  my  mother's.  My  father  accidentally 
saw  this  photograph  and  was  so  taken  with  it  that  he 
adorned  the  title-page  of  the  third  edition  of  The  Veiled 
Queen  with  a  small  woodcut  of  it. 

These  vagaries  of  my  father's  had  an  influence  upon  my 
destiny  of  the  most  tragic,  yet  of  the  most  fantastic  kind. 


34  Aylwin 

He  had  the  reputation,  I  believe,  of  being  one  of  the  most 
learned  mystics  of  his  time.  He  was  a  fair  Hebrew  scholar, 
and  also  had  a  knowledge  of  Sanscrit,  Arabic,  and  Persian. 
His  passion  for  philology  was  deep-rooted.  He  was  a  no  less 
ardent  numismatist.  Moreover,  he  was  deeply  versed  in 
amulet-lore.  He  wrote  a  treatise  upon  "amulets"  and  their 
inscriptions.  All  this  was  after  the  death  of  his  first  wife. 
He  had  a  large  collection  of  amulets.  Gnostic  gems  and 
abraxas  stones.  That  he  really  believed  in  the  virtue  of 
amulets  will  be  pretty  clearly  seen  as  my  narrative  proceeds. 
Indeed  the  subject  of  amulets  and  love-tokens  became  a 
mania  with  him.  After  his  death  it  was  said  that  his  collec- 
tion of  amulets,  Egyptian,  Gnostic,  and  other,  was  rarer,  and 
his  collection  of  St.  Helena  coins  larger,  than  any  other 
collection  in  England. 

Though  my  mother  did  not  know  of  the  spiritualistic 
orgies  in  Switzerland,  she  knew  that  my  father  was  a  spir- 
itualist. And  this  vexed  her,  not  only  because  she  con- 
ceived it  to  be  visionary  folly,  but  because  it  was  "low."  She 
knew  that  it  led  him  to  join  a  newly-formed  band  of  Latter- 
Day  mystics  which  had  been  organised  at  Raxton,  but 
luckily  she  did  not  know  that  through  them  he  believed  him- 
self to  be  holding  communication  with  his  first  wife.  The 
members  of  this  body  were  tradespeople  of  the  town,  and  I 
quite  think  that  in  my  mother's  eyes  all  tradespeople  were 
low. 

As  to  her  indifiference  towards  me, — that  is  easily  ex- 
plained. I  was  an  incorrigible  little  bohemian  by  nature. 
She  despaired  of  ever  changing  me.  During  several  years 
this  indifference  distressed  me,  though  it  in  no  way  dimin- 
ished my  affection  for  her.  At  last,  however,  I  got  accus- 
tomed to  it  and  accepted  it  as  inevitable.  But  the  remark- 
able thing  was  that  Frank's  affection  for  his  mother  was  of 
the  most  languid  kind.  He  was  an  open-hearted  boy,  and 
never  took  advantage  of  my  mother's  favouritism.  Thus  I 
was  left  entirely  to  my  own  resources.  My  little  love-idyl 
with  Winifred  was  for  a  long  time  unknown  to  my  mother, 
and  no  amount  of  ocular  demonstration  could  have  made  it 
known  (in  such  a  dream  was  he)  to  my  father. 

On  one  occasion,  however,  my  mother,  having  been 
struck  by  her  beauty  at  church,  told  Wynne  to  bring  her  to 
the  house,  little  thinking  what  she  was  doing.  Accordingly, 
Winifred    came    one    evening    and    charmed    my    mother, 


The  Cymric  Child  35 

charmed  the  entire  household,  by  her  grace  of  manner.  My 
mother,  upon  whom  what  she  called  "style"  made  a  far 
greater  impression  than  anything  else,  pronounced  her  to  be 
a  perfect  lady,  and  I  heard  her  remark  that  she  wondered 
how  the  child  of  such  a  scapegrace  as  Wynne  could  have 
been  so  reared. 

Unfortunately  I  was  not  old  enough  to  disguise  the  trans- 
ports of  delight  that  set  my  heart  beating  and  my  crippled 
limbs  trembling  as  I  saw  Winifred  gliding  like  a  fairy  about 
the  house  and  gardens,  and  petted  even  by  my  proud  and 
awful  mother.  My  mother  did  not  fail  to  notice  this,  and 
before  long  she  had  got  from  Frank  the  history  of  our  little 
loves,  and  even  of  the  "cripple  water"  from  St.  Winifred's 
Well.  I  partly  heard  what  Frank  was  telling  her,  and  I  was 
the  only  one  to  notice  the  expression  of  displeasure  that 
overspread  her  features.  She  did  not,  however,  show  it  to 
the  child,  but  she  never  invited  her  there  again,  and  from 
that  evening  was  much  more  vigilant  over  my  movements, 
lest  I  should  go  to  Wynne's  cottage.  I  still,  however,  con- 
tinued to  meet  Winifred  in  Graylingham  Wood  during  her 
stay  with  her  father;  and  at  last,  when  she  again  left  me,  I 
felt  desolate  indeed. 

I  wrote  her  a  letter,  and  took  it  to  him  to  address.  He 
was  very  fond  of  showing  his  penmanship,  which  was  re- 
markably good.  He  had  indeed  been  well  educated,  though 
from  his  beer-house  associations  he  had  entirely  caught  the 
rustic  accent,  I  saw  him  address  it,  and  took  it  myself  to 
the  post-office  at  Rington,  where  I  was  not  so  well  known  as 
at  Raxton,  but  I  never  got  any  reply. 

And  who  was  Tom  Wynne?  Though  the  organist  of  the 
new  church  at  Raxton,  and  custodian  of  the  old  deserted 
church  on  the  cliffs,  he  was  the  local  ne'er-do-well,  drunk- 
ard, and  scapegrace.  He  was,  however,  a  well-connected 
man,  reduced  to  his  present  position  by  drink.  He  had  lived 
in  Raxton  until  he  returned  to  Wales,  which  was  his  birth- 
place— having  obtained  there  some  appointment  the  nature 
of  which  I  never  could  understand.  In  Wales  he  had  got 
married;  and  there  his  wife  had  died  shortly  after  the  birth 
of  Winnie.  It  was  no  doubt  through  his  intemperate  habits 
that  he  lost  his  post  in  Wales.  It  was  then  that  he  again 
came  to  Raxton,  leaving  the  child  with  his  sister-in-law. 

Raxton  stands  on  that  part  of  the  coast  where  the  land- 
springs  most  persistently  disintegrate  the  hills  and  render 


36  Aylwin 

them  helpless  against  the  ravages  of  the  sea.  Perhaps  even 
within  the  last  few  centuries  the  spot  called  Mousetrap  Cove, 
scooped  out  of  the  peninsula  on  which  the  old  church  stands, 
was  dry  land.  The  old  Raxton  church  at  the  end  of  this 
peninsula  had,  not  many  years  since,  to  be  deserted  for  a 
new  one,  lest  it  should  some  day  carry  its  congregation  with 
it  when  it  slides,  as  it  soon  will  slide,  into  the  sea.  But  as 
none  had  dared  to  pull  down  the  old  church,  a  custodian  had 
to  be  found  who  for  a  pittance  would  take  charge  of  it  and 
of  the  important  monuments  it  contains.  Such  a  custodian 
was  found  in  Wynne,  who  lived  in  the  cottage  already  de- 
scribed on  the  Wilderness  Road.  Along  this  road  (which 
passed  both  the  new  church  and  the  old)  I  was  frequently 
journeying,  and  Wynne's  tall,  burly  form  and  ruddy  face 
were,  even  before  I  knew  Winnie,  a  certain  comfort  to  me. 

He  was  said  to  be  the  last  remnant  of  an  old  family  that 
once  owned  much  land  in  the  neighbourhood,  and  he  was 
still  the  recipient  of  a  small  pension.  I\Iy  father  used  to 
say  that  Wynne's  family  was  even  exceptionally  good,  that 
it  laid  claim  to  being  descended  from  a  still  older  Welsh  fam- 
ily. But  my  mother  scorned  the  idea,  and  always  treated 
the  organist  as  belonging  to  the  lower  classes.  It  was 
Wynne  who  had  taught  me  swimming.  It  was  really  he, 
and  not  my  groom,  who  had  taught  me  how  to  ride  a  horse 
along  the  low-tide  sands  so  as  not  to  distress  him  or  damage 
his  feet. 

It  was  about  this  time  that  my  uncle  Aylwin  of  Alvanley, 
my  mother's  brother,  who  had  quarrelled  with  her,  became 
reconciled  to  her,  and  came  to  Raxton.  He  at  once  recom- 
mended that  a  friend  of  his,  a  famous  London  surgeon, 
should  be  consulted  about  my  lameness.  I  accordingly 
went  with  him  to  London  to  be  placed  under  the  treatment 
of  the  eminent  man.  Had  this  been  done  earlier,  what  a 
world  of  suffering  might  have  been  spared  me!  The  man 
of  science  pronounced  my  ailment  to  be  quite  curable. 

He  performed  an  operation  upon  the  leg,  and  after  a  long 
and  careful  course  of  treatment  in  town,  advised  that  I 
should  go  to  Margate  for  a  long  stay,  and  avail  myself  of 
that  change  of  air.  I  went,  accompanied  by  my  mother  and 
brother,  and  stayed  there  several  months.  My  father  used 
to  come  to  see  us  once  a  month  or  so,  stay  for  a  week,  and 
then  go  back. 

As  the  surgeon  had  prophesied,  I  made  such  advance  that 


The  Cymric  Child  37 

I  was  after  a  while  able  to  walk  with  tolerable  ease  without 
my  crutches,  by  the  aid  of  a  walking-stick;  and  as  time  went 
on,  the  tonic  efifect  of  Margate  air,  aiding  the  remedies 
prescribed  by  the  surgeon,  worked  such  a  change  in  me 
that  I  was  pronounced  well,  and  the  doctor  said  I  might 
return  home.    I  returned  to  Raxton  a  cripple  no  longer. 

I  returned  cured,  I  say.  But  how  entangled  is  this  web  of 
our  life!  How  almost  impossible  is  it  that  good  should  come 
unmixed  with  evil,  or  evil  unmixed  with  good!  At  Margate, 
where  the  bracing  air  did  more,  I  doubt  not,  towards  my 
restoration  to  health  than  all  the  medicines, — at  Margate  my 
brother  drank  in  his  death-poison. 

During  the  very  last  days  of  our  stay  he  caught  scarlet 
fever.  In  a  fortnight  he  was  dead.  The  shock  to  me  was 
very  severe.    It  laid  my  mother  prostrate  for  months. 

I  was  now  by  the  death  of  Frank  the  representative  of  our 
branch  of  the  family,  and  a  little  fellow  of  uncomfortable  im- 
portance. My  uncle  Aylwin  of  Alvanley,  being  childless,  was 
certain  to  leave  me  his  large  estates,  for  he  had  dropped  en- 
tirely away  from  the  Aylwins  of  Rington  Manor,  and  also 
from  the  branch  of  the  Aylwin  family  represented  by  my 
cousin  Cyril. 


IT. 

The  Moonlight  Cross 
of  the   Gnostics 


II THE   MOONLIGHT   CROSS 

OF   THE   GNOSTICS 

I. 

My  mother  had  some  prejudice  against  a  public  school,  and 
I  was  sent  to  a  large  and  important  private  one  at  Cam- 
bridge. 

And  so,  with  Winifred  on  my  mind,  I  went  one  damp  win- 
ter's morning  to  Dullingham,  our  nearest  railway  station,  on 
my  way  to  Cambridge. 

As  concerns  my  school-days  I  feel  that  all  that  will  inter- 
est the  reader  is  this:  as  I  rode  through  mile  upon  mile  of  the 
Hat,  wide-stretching  country,  I  made  to  myself  a  vow  in  con- 
nection with  Winifred, — a  vow  that  when  I  left  school  I 
would  do  a  certain  thing  in  relation  to  her,  though  Fate  itself 
should  say,  ''This  thing  shall  not  be  done."  I  did  not  know 
then,  as  I  know  now,  how  weak  is  human  will  enmeshed  in 
that  web  of  Circumstance  that  has  been  a-weaving  since  the 
beginning  of  the  world. 

I  left  school  without  the  slightest  notion  as  to  what  my 
future  course  in  life  was  to  be.  I  was  to  take  my  rich  uncle's 
property.  That  was  understood  now.  And  although  my 
mother  never  talked  of  the  matter,  I  could  see  in  the  pensive 
gaze  she  bent  on  me  an  ever-present  consciousness  of  a  fu- 
ture for  me  more  golden  still. 

But  now  I  formed  a  new  intimacy,  and  one  of  a  very  sin- 
gular kind — an  intimacy  with  my  father,  who  suddenly  woke 
up  to  the  fact  that  I  was  no  longer  a  child.  It  occurred  on 
my  making  some  pertinent  inquiries  about  a  certain  Gnostic 
amulet  representing  the  Gorgon's  head,  a  prize  of  which  he 
had  lately  become  the  happy  possessor.  On  his  telling  me 
that  the  Arabic  word  for  amulet  was  Jiamalct,  and  that  the 
word  meant  "that  which  is  suspended,"  I  said  in  a  perfectly 


42  Aylwin 

thoughtless  way  that  very  hkely  one  of  the  learned  societies 
to  which  he  belonged  might  be  able  to  trace  some  connec- 
tion between  "harnalet"  and  the  "Hamlet"  of  Shakspeare. 
These  idle  and  ignorant  words  of  mine  fell,  as  I  found,  upon 
a  mind  ripe  to  receive  them.  He  looked  straight  before  him 
at  the  bust  of  Shakspeare  on  the  bookshelves,  as  he  always 
looked  vv'hen  his  rudderless  imagination  was  once  well 
launched,  and  I  heard  him  mutter,  "Hamlet — the  Amleth  of 
Saxo-Grammaticus, — hamalet,  'that  which  is  suspended.' 
The  world,  to  Hamlet's  metaphysical  mind,  was  'suspended' 
in  the  wide  region  of  Nowhere — in  an  infinite  ocean  of 
Nothing.  Why  did  I  not  think  of  this  before?  Strange  that 
this  child  should  hit  upon  it."  Then  looking  at  me  as  though 
he  had  just  seen  me  for  the  first  time  in  his  life,  he  said, 
"How  old  are  you,  child?"  "Eighteen,  father,"  I  said. 
"Eighteen  years?"  he  asked.  "Yes,  father,"  I  said  with  some 
pique.  "Did  you  suppose  I  meant  eighteen  months?"  "Only 
eighteen  years,"  he  muttered,  "a  mere  baby,  in  short;  and 
yet  he  has  hit  upon  what  we  Shakspearians  have  been  bog- 
gling over  for  many  years — the  symbolical  meaning  involved 
in  Hamlet's  name.  Henry,  I  prophesy  great  things  for  you." 

An  intimacy  was  cemented  between  us  at  once.  One  of 
the  results  of  this  conversation  was  my  father's  elaborate 
paper,  read  before  one  of  his  societies,  in  which  he  main- 
tained that  Shakspeare's  Hamlet  was  a  metaphysical  poem, 
the  great  central  idea  of  which  was  involved  in  the  name 
Hamlet,  Amleth,  or  Hamalet — the  idea  that  the  universe, 
suspended  in  the  wide  region  of  Nowhere,  lies,  an  amulet, 
upon  the  breast  of  the  Great  Latona, — a  paper  that  was  the 
basis  of  his  reputation  in  "the  higher  criticism." 

Shortly  after  this  my  father  and  I  spent  the  autumn  in 
various  parts  of  Switzerland.  One  night,  when  we  were  sit- 
ting outside  the  chalet  in  the  full  light  of  the  moon,  I  was  the 
witness  of  a  display  of  passion  on  the  part  of  one  whom  I 
had  always  considered  to  be  a  dreamy  book-worm — a  pas- 
sionless, eccentric  mystic — that  simply  amazed  me.  A  flick- 
ering tongue  from  the  central  fires  suddenly  breaking  up 
through  the  soil  of  an  English  vegetable  garden  could  hardly 
have  been  a  more  unexpected  phenomenon  to  me  than  what 
occurred  on  that  memorable  night. 

The  incident  I  am  going  to  relate  showed  me  how  rash 
it  is  to  supppose  that  you  have  really  fathomed  the  person- 
ality of  any  human  creature.     The  mementoes  of  his  first 


The  Moonlight  Cross  of  the  Gnostics      43 

wife,  which  accompanied  him  whithersoever  he  went,  ab- 
sorbed his  attention  in  Switzerland,  and  especially  in  the 
little  place  where  she  was  born,  far  more  than  they  had  done 
at  home.  He  was  forever  peeping  furtively  into  his  escri- 
toire to  enjoy  the  sight  of  them,  and  then  looking  over  his 
shoulder  to  see  if  he  was  being  watched  by  my  mother, 
though  she  was  far  away  in  Raxton  Hall.  On  the  night  in 
question  he  showed  me  the  silver  casket  containing  certain 
of  these  mementoes — mementoes  which  I  felt  to  be  almost 
too  intimate  to  be  shown  even  to  his  son. 

"And  now,  Henry,"  said  he,  "I  am  going  to  show  you 
something  that  no  one  else  has  ever  seen  since  she  died — the 
most  sacred  possession  I  have  upon  this  earth."  He  then 
opened  his  shirt  and  his  vest,  and  showed  me  lying  upon  his 
naked  bosom  a  beautiful  jewelled  cross  of  a  considerable 
size.  "This,"  said  he,  lifting  it  up,  "is  an  ancient  Gnostic 
amulet.  It  is  called  the  'Moonlight  Cross  of  the  Gnostics.' 
I  gave  it  to  her  on  the  night  of  our  betrothal.  She  was  a 
Roman  Catholic.  It  is  made  of  precious  stones  cut  in  facets, 
with  rubies  and  diamonds  and  beryls  so  cunningly  set  that, 
when  the  moonlight  falls  on  them,  the  cross  flashes  almost  as 
brilliantly  as  when  the  sunlight  falls  on  them  and  is  kindled 
into  living  fire.  These  deep-coloured  crimson  rubies — al- 
most as  clear  as  diamonds — are  not  of  the  ordinary  kind. 
They  are  true  'Oriental  rubies,'  and  the  jewellers  would  tell 
you  that  the  mine  which  produced  them  has  been  lost  during 
several  centuries.  But  look  here  when  I  lift  it  up;  the  most 
wonderful  feature  of  the  jewel  is  the  skill  with  which  the  dia- 
monds are  cut.  The  only  shapes  generally  known  are  what 
are  called  the  'brilliant'  and  the  'rose,'  but  here  the  facets  are 
arranged  in  an  entirely  different  way,  and  evidently  with  the 
view  of  throwing  light  into  the  very  hearts  of  the  rubies,  and 
producing  this  peculiar  radiance." 

He  lifted  the  amulet  again  (which  was  suspended  from  his 
neck  by  a  beautifully  worked  cord  made  of  soft  brown  hair) 
into  the  rays  from  the  moon.  The  light  the  jewel  emitted 
was  certainly  of  a  strange  and  fascinating  kind.  The  cross 
had  been  worn  with  the  jewelled  front  upon  his  bosom  in- 
stead of  the  smooth  back,  and  the  sharp  facets  of  the  cross 
had  lacerated  the  scarred  flesh  underneath  in  a  most  cruel 
manner.    He  saw  me  shudder  and  understood  why. 

"Oh,  I  like  that!"  he  said,  with  an  ecstatic  smile'.  "I  like 
to  feel  it  constantly  on  my  bosom.     It  cannot  cut  deep 


44  Aylwin 

enough  for  me.  This  is  her  hair,"  he  said,  taking  the  hair- 
cord  between  his  fingers  and  kissing  it. 

"How  do  you  manage  to  exist,  father,"  I  said,  "with  that 
heavy  sharp-edged  jewel  on  your  breast?  you  who  cannot 
bear  the  gout  with  patience?" 

"Exist?  I  could  not  exist  witJioiit  it.  The  gout  is  pain — 
this  is  not  pain;  it  is  joy,  bliss,  heaven!  When  I  am  dead  it 
must  lie  for  ever  on  my  breast  as  it  lies  now,  or  I  shall  never 
rest  in  my  grave." 

He  had  been  talking  about  amulets  in  the  most  quiet  and 
matter-of-fact  way  during  that  morning;  but  the  moment  he 
produced  this  cross  a  strange  change  came  over  his  face, 
something  like  the  change  that  will  come  over  a  dull  wood- 
lire  when  blown  by  the  wind  into  a  bright  life  of  flame. 

"Ha !"  he  muttered  to  himself,  as  his  eyes  widened  and 
sparkled  with  a  look  of  intense  eagerness  and  his  hand 
shook,  sending  the  light  of  the  beautiful  jewel  all  about  the 
room,  "it  is  a  sad  pity  he  was  not  her  son.  How  I  should 
have  loved  him  then!  I  like  him  now  very  much;  but  how  1 
should  have  loved  him  then,  for  he  is  a  brave  boy.  Oh,  if  I 
had  only  been  born  brave  like  him !"  Then,  suddenly  recol- 
lecting himself,  he  closed  his  vest,  and  said  :  "Don't  tell  your 
mother,  Hal ;  don't  tell  your  mother  that  I  have  shown  you 
this."  Then  he  took  it  out  again.  "She  who  is  dead  cher- 
ished it,"  he  continued,  half  to  himself — "she  cherished  it 
above  all  things.  She  died,  boy,  and  I  couldn't  help  her. 
She  used  to  wear  the  cross  in  the  bosom  of  her  dress ;  and 
there  she  was  in  the  cove  kissing  it  when  the  tide  swept  over 
her.  I  ought  to  have  jumped  down  and  died  with  her.  You 
would  have  done  it,  Hal ;  your  eyes  say  so.  Oh,  to  be  an 
Aylwin  without  the  Ayhvin  courage !" 

After  a  little  time  he  said:  "This  has  lain  on  her  bosom, 
Hal,  her  bosom !  It  has  been  kissed  by  her,  Hal,  oh,  a 
thousand  thousand  times  !  It  had  her  last  kiss.  When  I  took 
it  from  the  cold  body  which  had  been  recovered,  this  cross 
seemed  to  be  warm  with  her  life  and  love." 

And  then  he  wept,  and  his  tears  fell  thick  upon  his  bosom 
and  upon  the  amulet.  The  truth  w'as  clear  enough  now. 
The  appalling  death  of  his  first  wife,  his  love  for  her,  and  his 
remorse  for  not  having  jumped  down  the  cliff  and  died  with 
her,  had  affected  his  brain.  He  was  a  monomaniac,  and  all 
his  thoughts  were  in  some  way  clustered  round  the  dominant 
one.     He   had   studied   amulets   because   the   "Moonlight 


The  Moonlight  Cross  of  the  Gnostics      45 

Cross"  had  been  cherished  by  her;  he  came  to  Switzerland 
every  year  because  it  was  associated  with  her;  he  had  joined 
the  spiritualist  body  in  the  mad  hope  that  perhaps  there 
might  be  something  in  it,  perhaps  there  might  be  a  power 
that  could  call  her  back  to  earth.  Even  the  favourite  occu- 
pation of  his  life,  visiting  cathedrals  and  churches  and  taking 
rubbings  from  monumental  brasses,  had  begun  after  her 
death;  it  had  come  from  the  fact  (as  I  soon  learned)  that  she 
had  taken  interest  in  monumental  brasses,  and  had  begun 
the  collection  of  rubbings. 

And  yet  this  martyr  to  a  mighty  passion  bore  the  char- 
acter of  a  dreamy  student;  and  his  calm,  unfurrowed  face,  on 
common  occasions,  expressed  nothing  but  a  rather  dull  kind 
of  content!  Here  was  a  revelation  of  what,  afterwards,  was 
often  revealed  to  me,  that  human  personality  is  the  crowning 
wonder  of  this  wonderful  universe,  and  that  the  forces  which 
turn  fire-mist  into  stars  are  not  more  inscrutable  than  is 
human  character.  He  lifted  up  his  head  and  gazed  at  me 
through  his  tears. 

"Hal,"  he  said,  "do  you  know  why  I  have  shown  you  this? 
It  must,  MUST  be  buried  with  me  at  my  death;  and  there  is 
no  one  upon  whose  energy,  truth,  courage,  and  strength  of 
will  I  can  rely  as  I  can  upon  yours.  You  must  give  me  your 
word,  Hal,  that  you  will  see  it  and  this  casket  containing  her 
letters  buried  with  me." 

I  hesitated  to  become  a  party  to  such  an  undertaking  as 
this.  It  savoured  of  superstition,  I  thought.  Now,  having 
at  that  very  time  abandoned  all  the  superstitions  and  all  the 
mystical  readings  of  the  universe  which  as  a  child  I  had  in- 
herited from  ancestors,  Romany  and  English,  having  at 
that  very  time  begun  to  take  a  delight  in  the  wonderful  reve- 
lations of  modern  science,  my  attitude  towards  superstition 
— towards  all  supernaturalism — oscillated  between  anger 
and  simple  contempt. 

"But,"  I  said,  "you  surely  will  not  have  this  beautiful  old 
cross  buried  ?"  And  as  I  looked  at  it,  and  the  light  fell  upon 
it,  there  came  from  it  strange  flashes  of  fire,  showing  with 
what  extraordinary  skill  the  rubies  and  diamonds  had  been 
adjusted  so  that  their  facets  should  catch  and  concentrate  the 
rays  of  the  moon. 

"Yes,"  he  said,  taking  the  cross  again  in  his  hand  and 
fondling  it  passionately,  "it  must  never  be  possessed  by  any 
one  after  me." 


46  Aylwin 

"But  it  might  be  stolen,  father — stolen  from  your  coffin." 
"That  would  indeed  be  a  disaster,"  he  said  with  a  shudder. 
Then  a  look  of  deadly  vengeance  overspread  his  face  and 
brought  out  all  its  Romany  characteristics  as  he  said:  "But 
with  it  there  will  be  buried  a  curse  written  in  Hebrew  and 
English — a  curse  upon  the  despoiler,  which  will  frighten  off 
any  thief  who  is  in  his  senses." 

And  he  showed  me  a  large  parchment  scroll,  folded  ex- 
actly like  a  title  deed,  with  the  following  curse  and  two 
verses  from  the  109th  Psalm  written  upon  it  in  Hebrew  and 
English.  The  English  version  w^as  carefully  printed  by  him- 
self in  large  letters: — 

"He  who  shall  violate  this  tomb, — he  who  shall  steal  this  amulet, 
hallowed  as  a  love-token  between  me  and  my  dead  wife, — he  who 
shall  dare  to  lay  a  sacrilegious  hand  upon  this  cross,  stands  cursed 
by  God,  cursed  by  love,  and  cursed  by  me,  Philip  Aylwin,  lying 
here.  'Let  there  be  no  man  to  pity  him,  nor  to  have  compassion 
upon  his  fatherless  children.  .  .  .  Let  his  children  be  vaga- 
bonds, and  beg  their  bread:  let  them  seek  it  also  out  of  desolate 
places.' — Psalm  cix.     So  saith  the  Lord.     Amen." 

"I  have  printed  the  English  version  in  large  letters,"  he 
said,  "so  that  any  would-be  despoiler  must  see  it  and  read 
it  at  once  by  the  dimmest  lantern  light." 

"But,  father,"  I  said,  "is  it  possible  that  you,  an  educated 
man,  really  believe  in  the  efficacy  of  a  curse?" 

"If  the  curse  comes  straight  from  the  heart's  core  of  a 
man,  as  this  curse  comes  from  mine,  Hal,  how  can  it  fail  to 
operate  by  the  mere  force  of  will?  The  curse  of  a  man  who 
loved  as  I  love  upon  the  wretch  who  should  violate  a  love- 
token  so  sacred  as  this — why,  the  disembodied  spirits  of  all 
who  have  loved  and  suffered  would  combine  to  execute  it!" 

"Spirits!"  I  said.  "Really,  father,  in  times  like  these  to 
talk  of  spirits!" 

"Ah,  Henry!"  he  replied,  "I  was  like  you  once.  I  could 
once  be  content  with  Materialism — I  could  find  it  supporta- 
ble once ;  but,  should  you  ever  come  to  love  as  I  have  loved 
(and,  for  your  own  happiness,  child,  I  hope  you  never  may), 
you  will  find  that  Materialism  is  intolerable,  is  hell  itself,  to 
the  heart  that  has  known  a  passion  like  mine.  You  will  find 
that  it  is  madness,  Hal,  madness,  to  believe  in  the  word 
'never'!  you  will  find  that  you  dare  not  leave  untried  any 
creed,  howsoever  wild,  that  offers  the  heart  a  ray  of  hope. 
Every  object  she  cheri.shed  has  become  spiritualized,  sub- 


The  Moonlight  Cross  of  the  Gnostics     47 

linialed,  has  become  alive — alive  as  this  amulet  is  alive.  See, 
the  lights  are  no  natural  lights."    And  again  he  held  it  up. 

"If  on  my  death-bed,"  he  continued,  "I  thought  that  this 
beloved  cross  and  these  sacred  relics  would  ever  get  into 
other  hands — would  ever  touch  other  flesh — than  mine,  I 
should  die  a  maniac,  Hal,  and  my  spirit  would  never  be  re- 
leased from  the  chains  of  earth." 

It  was  the  superstitious  tone  of  his  talk  that  irritated  and 
hardened  me.  He  saw  it,  and  a  piteous  expression  over- 
spread his  features. 

"Don't  desert  your  poor  father,"  he  said.  "What  I  want 
is  the  word  of  an  Aylwin  that  those  beloved  relics  shall  be 
buried  with  me.  If  I  had  that,  I  should  be  content  to  live, 
and  content  to  die.     Oh,  Hal!" 

He  threw  such  an  imploring  gaze  into  my  face  as  he  said 
"Oh,  Hal!"  that,  reluctant  as  I  was  to  be  mixed  up  with 
superstition,  I  promised  to  execute  his  wishes;  I  promised 
also  to  keep  the  secret  from  all  the  world  during  his  life,  and 
after  his  death  to  share  it  wath  those  two  only  from  whom, 
for  family  reasons,  it  could  not  be  kept — my  uncle  Aylwin  of 
Alvanley  and  my  mother.  He  then  put  away  the  amulet, 
and  his  face  resumed  the  look  of  placid  content  it  usually 
wore.  He  was  feeling  the  facets  of  the  mysterious  "Moon- 
light Cross"! 

The  most  marvellous  thing  is  this,  however :  his  old  rela- 
tions towards  me  were  at  once  resumed.  He  never  alluded 
to  the  subject  of  his  first  wife  again,  and  I  soon  found  it  diffi- 
cult to  believe  that  the  conversation  just  recorded  ever  took 
place  at  all.  Evidently  his  monomania  only  rose  up  to  a  pas- 
sionate expression  when  fanned  into  sudden  flame  by  talking 
about  the  cross.  It  was  as  though  the  shock  of  his  first 
wife's  death  had  severed  his  consciousness  and  his  life  in 
twain. 


II.  ' 

Naturally  this  visit  to  Switzerland  cemented  our  intimacy, 
and  it  w^as  on  our  return  home  that  he  suggested  my  accom- 
panying him  on  one  of  his  "rubbing  expeditions." 

"Henry,"  he  said,  "your  mother  has  of  late  frequently  dis- 
cussed with  me  the  question  of  your  future  calling  in  life. 


48  Aylwin 

She  suggests  a  rarliamentary  career.  I  confess  that  I  find 
questions  about  careers  exceedingly  disturbing." 

"There  is  only  one  profession  1  should  like,  father,"  I  said, 
"and  that  is  a  painter's."  In  fact,  the  passion  for  painting 
had  come  on  me  very  strongly  of  late.  My  dreams  had  from 
the  first  been  of  wandering  with  Winnie  in  a  paradise  of  col- 
our, and  these  dreams  had  of  late  been  more  frequent:  the 
paradise  of  colour  had  been  growing  richer  and  rarer. 

He  shook  his  head  gravely  and  said,  "No,  my  dear;  your 
mother  would  never  allow  it." 

"Why  not?"  I  said;  "is  painting  low  too?" 

"Cyril  Aylwin  is  low,  at  least  so  your  mother  and  aunt  say, 
especially  your  aunt.  I  have  not  perceived  it  myself,  but 
then  your  mother's  perceptive  faculties  are  extraordinary — 
quite  extraordinary." 

"Did  the  iowness  come  fromi  his  being  a  painter,  father?" 
I  asked. 

"Really,  child,  you  are  puzzling  me.  But  I  have  observed 
you  now  for  some  weeks,  and  I  quite  believe  that  you  would 
make  one  of  the  best  rubbers  who  ever  held  a  ball.  I  am 
going  to  Salisbury  next  week,  and  you  shall  then  make  your 
debut." 

This  was  in  the  midst  of  a  very  severe  winter  we  had  some 
years  ago,  when  all  Europe  was  under  a  coating  of  ice. 

"But,  father,"  I  said,  "sha'n't  we  find  it  rather  cold?" 

"Well,"  said  my  father,  with  a  bland  smile,  "I  will  not  pre- 
tend that  Salisbury  Cathedral  is  particularly  warm  in  this 
weather,  but  in  winter  I  always  rub  in  knee-caps  and  mit- 
tens.   I  will  tell  Hodder  to  knit  you  a  full  set  at  once." 

"But,  father,"  I  said,  "Tom  Wynne  tells  me  that  rubbing 
is  the  most  painful  of  all  occupations.  He  even  goes  so  far 
sometimes  as  to  say  that  it  was  the  exhaustion  of  rubbing  for 
you  which  turned  him  to  drink." 

"Nothing  of  the  kind,"  said  my  father.  "All  that  Tom 
needed  to  make  him  a  good  rubber  was  enthusiasm.  I  am 
strongly  of  opinion  that  without  enthusiasm  rubbing  is  of  all 
occupations  the  most  irksome,  except  perhaps  for  the  quad- 
rumana  (who  seem  more  adapted  for  this  exercise),  the  most 
painful  for  the  spine,  the  most  cramping  for  the  thighs,  the 
most  numbing  for  the  fingers.  It  is  a  profession.  Henry, 
demanding  above  every  other,  enthusiasm  in  the  operator. 
Now  Tom's  enthusiasm  for  rubbing  as  an  art  was  from  the 
first  exceedingly  feeble." 


The  Moonlight  Cross  of  the  Gnostics     49 

I  was  on  the  eve  of  revolting,  but  I  remembered  what 
there  was  lacerating  his  poor  breast,  and  consented.  And 
when  I  heard  hints  of  our  "working  the  Welsh  churches" 
my  sudden  enthusiasm  for  the  rubber's  art  astonished  even 
my  father. 

"My  dear,"  he  said  to  my  mother  at  dinner  one  day, 
"vvhat  do  you  think  ?  Henry  has  developed  quite  a  sudden 
passion  for  rubbing." 

I  saw  an  expression  of  perplexity  and  mystification  over- 
spread my  mother's  sagacious  face, 

"And  in  the  spring,"  continued  my  father,  "we  are  going 
into  Wales  to  rub." 

"Into  Wales,  are  you?"  said  my  mother,  in  a  tone  of  that 
soft  voice  whose  meaning  I  knew  so  well. 

My  thoughts  were  continually  upon  Winifred,  now  that  I 
was  alone  in  the  familiar  spots.  I  had  never  seen  her  nor 
heard  from  her  since  we  parted  as  children.  She  had  only 
known  me  as  a  cripple.  What  would  she  think  of  me  now? 
Did  she  ever  think  of  me?  She  had  not  answered  my  child- 
ish letter,  and  this  had  caused  me  much  sorrow  and  per- 
plexity. 

We  did  not  go  into  Wales  after  all.  But  the  result  of  this 
conversation  took  a  shape  that  amazed  me.  I  was  sent  to 
stay  with  my  Aunt  Prue  in  London  in  order  that  I  might 
attend  one  of  the  Schools  of  Art.  Yes,  my  mother  thought 
it  was  better  for  me  even  to  run  the  risk  of  becoming  bohe- 
mianised  like  Cyril  Aylvvin,  than  to  brood  over  Winnie  or 
the  scenes  that  were  associated  with  our  happy  childhood. 

In  London  I  was  an  absolute  stranger.  We  had  no  town 
house.  On  the  few  occasions  when  the  family  had  gone  to 
London,  it  was  to  stay  in  Belgrave  Square  with  my  Aunt 
Prue,  who  was  an  unmarried  sister  of  my  mother's. 

"Since  the  death  of  the  Prince  Consort,  to  go  no  further 
back,"  she  used  to  say,  "a  dreadful  change  has  come  over 
the  tone  of  society;  the  love  of  bohemianism,  the  desire  to 
take  up  any  kind  of  people,  if  they  are  amusing,  and  still 
more  if  they  are  rich,  is  levelling  everything.  However, 
I'm  nobody  now;  /  say  nothing." 

What  wonder  that  from  my  vcrv  childhood  my  aunt  took 
a  prejudice  against  me,  and  predicted  for  me  a  career  "as 
deplorable  as  C'yril  Aylvvin's,"  and  sympathised  with  my 
mother  in  her  terror  of  the  Cypsy  strain  in  my  father's 
branch  of  the  family? 


50  Aylwin 

Her  tastes  and  instincts  being  intensely  aristocratic,  she 
suffered  a  martyrdom  from  her  ever  present  consciousness  of 
this  disgrace.  She  had  seen  very  much  more  of  what  is 
called  Society  than  my  mother  had  ever  an  opportunity  of 
seeing.  It  was  not,  however,  aristocracy,  but  Royalty  that 
won  the  true  worship  of  her  soul. 

Although  she  was  immeasurably  inferior  to  my  mother  in 
everything,  her  influence  over  her  was  great,  and  it  was 
always  for  ill.  I  believe  that  even  my  mother's  prejudice 
against  Tom  Wynne  was  largely  owing  to  my  aunt,  who  dis- 
liked my  relations  towards  Wynne  simply  because  he  did  not 
represent  one  of  the  great  Wynne  families.  But  the  re- 
markable thing  was  that,  although  my  mother  thus  yielded 
to  my  aunt's  influence,  she  in  her  heart  despised  her  sister's 
ignorance  and  her  narrowness  of  mind.  She  often  took  a 
humorous  pleasure  in  seeing  my  aunt's  aristocratic  proclivi- 
ties bafiled  by  some  vexing  contretemps  or  by  some  sHght 
passed  upon  her  by  people  of  superior  rank,  especially  by 
those  in  the  Royal  circle. 

There  have  been  so  many  descriptions  of  art  schools,  from 
the  famous  "Gandish's"  down  to  the  very  moment  at  which 
I  write,  that  I  do  not  intend  to  describe  mine. 

It  would  be  very  far  from  my  taste  to  use  a  narrative  like 
this,  a  narrative  made  sacred  by  the  spiritual  love  it  records, 
as  a  means  of  advertising  efforts  of  such  modest  pretensions 
as  mine  when  placed  in  comparison  with  the  work  of  the 
illustrious  painters  my  friendship  with  whom  has  been  the 
great  honour  of  my  life.  And  if  I  allude  here  to  the  fact  of 
my  being  a  painter,  it  is  in  order  that  I  may  not  be  mistaken 
for  another  Aylwin,  my  cousin  Percy,  who  in  some  unpub- 
lished poems  of  his  which  I  have  seen  has  told  how  a  sailor 
was  turned  into  a  poet  by  love — love  of  Rhona  Boswell.  In 
the  same  way,  these  pages  are  written  to  tell  how  I  was  made 
a  painter  by  love  of  her  whom  I  first  saw  in  Raxton  church- 
yard, her  who  filled  my  being  as  Beatrice  filled  the  being  of 
Dante  when  "the  spirit  of  life,  Avhich  hath  its  dwelling  in  the 
secretest  chamber  of  the  heart,  began  to  tremble  so  violently 
that  the  least  pulses  of  his  body  shook  therewith." 


The  Moonlight  Cross  of  the  Gnostics      51 


III. 

Time  went  by,  and  I  returned  to  Raxton.  Just  when  I  had 
determined  that,  come  what  would,  I  would  go  into  Wales, 
Wynne  one  day  told  me  that  Winnie  was  coming-  to  live  with 
him  at  Raxton,  her  aunt  having  lately  died.  '"The  English 
lady,"  said  he,  "who  lived  with  them  so  long  and  eddicated 
Winifred,  has  gone  to  live  at  Carnarvon  to  get  the  sea  air." 

This  news  was  at  once  a  joy  and  a  perplexity. 

Wynne,  though  still  the  handsomest  and  finest  man  in 
Raxton,  had  sunk  much  lower  in  intemperance  of  late.  He 
now  generally  wound  up  a  conversation  with  me  by  a  certain 
stereotyped  allusion  to  the  dryness  of  the  weather,  which  I 
perfectly  understood  to  mean  that  he  felt  thirsty,  and  that  an 
offer  of  half-a-crown  for  beer  would  not  be  unacceptable. 
He  was  a  proud  man  in  everything  except  in  reference  to 
beer.  But  he  seemed  to  think  there  was  no  degradation  in 
asking  for  money  to  get  drunk  with,  though  to  have  asked 
for  it  to  buy  bread  would,  I  suppose,  have  wounded  his 
pride.  I  did  not  then  see  so  clearly  as  I  now  do  the  wrong 
of  giving  htm  those  half-crowns.  His  annuity  he  had  long 
since  sold. 

Spite  of  all  his  delinquencies,  however,  my  father  liked 
him;  so  did  my  uncle  Aylwin  of  Alvanley.  But  my  mother 
seemed  positively  to  hate  him.  It  was  the  knowledge  of  this 
that  caused  my  anxiety  about  Winifred's  return.  I  felt  that 
complications  must  arise. 

At  this  time  I  used  to  go  to  Dullingham  every  day.  The 
clergyman  there  was  preparing  me  for  college. 

On  the  Sunday  following  the  day  when  I  got  such  mo- 
mentous news  from  Wynne,  I  was  met  suddenly,  as  my 
mother  and  I  were  leaving  the  church  after  the  service,  by 
the  gaze  of  a  pair  of  blue  eyes  that  arrested  my  steps  as  by 
magic,  and  caused  the  church  and  the  churchgoers  to  vanish 
from  my  sight. 

The  picture  of  Winifred  that  had  dwelt  in  my  mind  so 
long  was  that  of  a  beautiful  child.  The  radiant  vision  of  the 
girl  before  me  came  on  me  by  surprise  and  dazzled  me.  Tall 
and  slim  she  was  now,  but  the  complexion  had  not  altered 
at  all ;  the  eyes  seemed  voung  and  childlike  as  ever. 


52  Aylwin 

When  our  eyes  met  she  blushed,  then  turned  pale,  and 
took  hold  of  the  top  of  a  seat  near  which  she  was  standing. 
She  came  along  the  aisle  close  to  us  gliding  and  slipping 
through  the  crowd,  and  passed  out  of  the  porch.  My  mother 
had  seen  my  agitation,  and  had  moved  on  in  a  state  of 
haughty  indignation.  I  had  no  room,  however,  at  that  mo- 
ment for  considerations  of  any  person  but  one.  I  hurried 
out  of  the  church,  and,  following  Winifred,  grasped  her 
gloved  hand. 

"Winifred,  you  are  come,"  I  said;  "I  have  been  longing  to 
see  you." 

She  again  turned  pale  and  then  blushed  scarlet.  Next  she 
looked  down  me  as  if  she  had  expected  to  see  something 
which  she  did  not  see,  and  when  her  eyes  were  upraised 
again  something  in  them  gave  me  a  strange  fancy  that  she 
was  disappointed  to  miss  my  crutches. 

"Why  didn't  you  write  me  from  Wales,  Winifred?  Why 
didn't  you  answer  my  letter  years  ago?" 

She  hesitated,  then  said, 

"My  aunt  wouldn't  let  me,  sir." 

"Wouldn't  let  you  answer  it!  and  why?" 

Again  she  hesitated, 

"I— I  don't  know,  sir." 

"You  do  know,  Winifred.  I  see  that  you  know,  and  you 
shall  tell  me.  Why  didn't  your  aunt  let  you  answer  myletter?" 

Winifred's  eyes  looked  into  mine  beseechingly.  Then  that 
light  of  playful  humour,  which  I  remembered  so  well,  shot 
like  a  sunbeam  across  and  through  them  as  she  replied — 

"My  aunt  said  we  must  both  forget  our  pretty  dream." 

Almost  before  the  words  were  out,  however,  the  sunbeam 
fled  from  her  eyes  and  was  replaced  by  a  look  of  terror.  I 
now  perceived  that  my  mother,  in  passing  to  the  carriage, 
had  lingered  on  the  gravel-path  close  to  us,  and  had,  of 
course  overheard  the  dialogue.  She  passed  on  with  a  look 
of  hate.  I  thought  it  wise  to  bid  Winifred  good-bye  and 
join  my  mother. 

As  I  stepped  into  the  carriage  I  turned  round  and  saw 
that  Winifred  was  again  looking  wistfully  at  some  particular 
part  of  me — looking  with  exactly  that  simple,  frank,  "ob- 
jective" expression  with  which  I  was  familiar. 

"I  knew  it  was  the  crutches  she  missed,"  I  said  to  myself 
as  I  sat  down  by  my  mother's  side;  "she'll  have  to  love  me 
now  because  I  am  not  lame." 


The  Moonlight  Cross  of  the  Gnostics     53 

I  also  knew  something  else:  I  must  prepare  for  a  conflict 
with  my  mother.  My  father,  at  this  time  in  Switzerland,  had 
written  to  say  that  he  had  been  sufl^ering  acutely  from  an 
attack  of  what  he  called  "spasms."  He  had  "been  much  sub- 
ject to  them  of  late,  but  no  one  considered  them  to  be  really 
dangerous." 

During  luncheon  I  felt  that  my  mother's  eyes  were  on  me. 
After  it  was  over  she  went  to  her  room  to  write  in  answer  to 
my  father's  letter,  and  then  later  on  she  returned  to  me. 

"Henr}^,"  she  said,  "my  overhearing  the  dialogue  in  the 
churchyard  between  you  and  Wynne's  daughter  was,  I  need 
not  say,  quite  accidental,  but  it  is  perhaps  fortunate  that  I 
did  overhear  it." 

"Why  fortunate,  mother?  You  simply  heard  her  say  that 
her  aunt  m  Wales  had  forbidden  her  to  answer  a  childish  let- 
ter of  mine  written  many  years  ago." 

"In  telling  you  which,  the  girl,  I  must  say,  proclaimed  her 
aunt  to  be  an  exceedingly  sensible  and  well  conducted 
woman,"  said  my  mother. 

"On  that  point,  mother,"  I  said,  "you  must  allow  me  to 
hold  a  different  opinion.  I,  for  my  part,  should  have  said 
that  Winifred's  story  proclaimed  her  aunt  to  be  a  worthy 
member  of  a  flunkey  society  like  this  of  ours — a  society 
whose  structure,  political  and  moral  and  religious,  is  based 
on  an  adamantine  rock  of  paltry  snobbery." 

It  was  impossible  to  restrain  my  indignation. 

"I  am  aware,  Henry,"  replied  my  mother  calmly,  "that  it 
is  one  of  the  fashions  of  the  hour  for  young  men  of  family  to 
adopt  the  language  of  Radical  newspapers.  In  a  country 
like  this  the  affectation  does  no  great  harm,  I  grant,  and  rav 
only  serious  objection  to  it  is  that  it  implies  in  young  men  of 
one's  own  class  a  lack  of  originality  which  is  a  little  hu- 
miliating. I  am  aware  that  your  cousin,  Percy  Aylwin,  of 
Rington  Manor,  used  to  talk'in  the  same  strain  as  this,  and 
ended  by  joining  the  Gypsies.  But  I  came  to  warn  you, 
Henry,  I  came  to  urge  you  not  to  injure  this  poor  girl's 
reputation  by  such  scenes  as  that  I  witnessed  this  morning." 

I  remained  silent.  The  method  of  my  mother's  attack  had 
taken  rne  by  surprise.  Her  sagacity  was  so  much  greater 
than  mine,  her  power  of  fence  was  so  nuich  greater,  her 
stroke  was  so  much  deadlier,  that  in  all  our  encounters  I 
had  been  conquered. 

"It  is  for  the  girl's  own  sake  that  I  speak  to  you,"  con- 


54  Aylwin 

tinued  my  mother.  "She  was  deeply  embarrassed  at  your 
method  of  address,  and  well  she  might  be,  seeing  that  it  will 
be,  for  a  long  time  to  come,  the  subject  of  discussion  in  all 
the  beer-houses  which  her  father  frequents." 

"You  speak  as  though  she  were  answerable  for  her 
father's  faults,"  I  said,  with  heat. 

"No,"  said  my  mother;  "but  yotir  father  is  the  owner  of 
Raxton  Hall,  which  to  her  and  her  class  is  a  kind  of  Palace 
of  the  Caesars..  You  belong  to  a  family  famous  all  along  the 
coast;  you  are  well  known  to  be  the  probable  heir  of  one  of 
the  largest  landowners  in  England;  you  may  be  something 
more  important  still;  while  she,  poor  girl,  what  is  she  that 
you  should  rush  up  to  her  before  all  the  churchgoers  of  the 
parish  and  address  her  as  Winifred?  The  daughter  of  a  pen- 
niless drunken  reprobate.  Every  attention  you  pay  her  is 
but  a  slur  upon  her  good  name." 

"There  is  not  a  lady  in  the  county  worthy  to  unlace  her 
shoes,"  I  cried,  unguardedly.  Then  I  could  have  bitten  off 
my  tongue  for  saying  so. 

"That  may  be,"  said  my  mother,  with  the  cjuiet  irony 
peculiar  to  her;  "but  so  monstrous  are  the  customs  of  Eng- 
land, Henry,  so  barbaric  is  this  society  you  despise,  that  she, 
whose  shoes  no  lady  in  the  county  is  worthy  to  unlace,  is  in 
an  anomalous  position.  Should  she  once  again  be  seen 
talking  familiarly  with  you,  her  character  will  have  fled,  and 
fled  for  ever.  It  is  for  you  to  choose  whether  you  are  set 
upon  ruining  her  reputation." 

I  felt  that  what  she  said  was  true.  I  felt  also  that  Winifred 
herself  had  recognized  the  net  of  conventions  that  kept  us 
apart  in  spite  of  that  close  and  tender  intimacy  which  had 
been  the  one  great  factor  of  our  lives.  In  a  certain  sense  I 
was  far  more  of  a  child  of  Nature  than  Winifred  herself,  in- 
asmuch as,  owing  to  my  remarkable  childish  experience  of 
isolation,  I  had  imbibed  a  scepticism  about  the  sanctity  of 
conventions  such  as  is  foreign  to  the  nature  of  woman,  be 
she  ever  so  unsophisticated,  as  Winifred's  shyness  towards 
mc  had  testified. 

As  a  child  I  had  been  neglected  for  the  firstborn.  I  had 
enjoyed  through  this  neglect  an  absolute  freedom  with  re- 
gard to  associating  with  fisher-boys  and  all  the  shoeless,  hat- 
less  "sea-pups"  of  the  sands,  and  now,  when  the  time  had 
come  to  civilise  me,  my  mother  had  found  it  was  too  late.  I 
was  bohemian  to  the  core.     My  childish  intercourse  with 


The  Moonlight  Cross  of  the  Gnostics      ^^ 

Winifred  had  been  one  of  absolute  equality,  and  I  could  not 
now  divest  myself  of  this  relation.  These  were  my  thoughts 
as  I  listened  to  my  mother's  words. 

My  great  fear  now,  however,  was  lest  I  should  say  some- 
thing to  compromise  myself,  and  so  make  matters  worse. 
Before  another  word  upon  the  subject  should  pass  between 
my  mother  and  me  I  must  see  Winifred — and  then  I  had 
something  to  say  to  her  which  no  power  on  earth  should 
prevent  me  from  saying.  So  I  merely  told  my  mother  that 
there  was  much  truth  in  what  she  had  said,  and  proceeded  to 
ask  particulars  about  my  father's  recent  illness.  After  giv- 
ing me  these  particulars  she  left  the  room,  perplexed,  I 
thought,  as  to  what  had  been  the  result  of  her  mission. 


IV. 

I  REMAINED  alonc  for  some  time.  Then  I  told  the  servants 
that  I  was  going  to  walk  along  the  clififs  to  Dullingham 
Church,  where  there  was  an  evening  service,  and  left  the 
house.  I  hastened  towards  the  cliffs,  and  descended  to  the 
sands,  in  the  hope  that  Winifred  might  be  roaming  about 
there,  but  I  walked  all  the  way  to  Dullingham  without  get- 
ting a  glimpse  of  her.  The  church  service  did  not  interest 
me  that  evening.  I  heard  nothing  and  saw  nothing.  When 
the  service  was  over  I  returned  along  the  sands,  sauntering 
and  lingering  in  the  hope  that,  late  as  it  was  now  growing, 
the  balmy  evening  might  have  enticed  her  out. 

The  evening  grew  to  night,  and  still  I  lingered.  The 
moon  was  nearly  at  the  full,  and  exceedingly  bright.  The 
tide  was  down.  The  scene  was  magical;  I  could  not  leave  it. 
I  said  to  myself,  "I  will  go  and  stand  on  the  very  spot  where 
Winifred  stood  when  she  lisped  'certumly'  to  the  proposal  of 
her  little  lover." 

It  was  not,  after  all,  till  this  evening  that  I  really  knew 
how  entirely  she  was  a  portion  of  my  life. 

I  went  and  stood  by  the  black  boulder  where  I  had  re- 
ceived the  little  child's  prompt  reply.  There  was  not  a  grain 
left,  I  knew,  of  that  same  sand  which  had  been  hallowed  by 
the  little  feet  of  Winifred,  but  it  served  my  mood  just  as  well 
as  though  every  grain  had  felt  the  beloved  pressure.  For 
that  the  very  sands  had  loved  the  child,  I  half  believed. 


56  Aylwin 

I  said  to  myself,  as  I  sat  down  upon  the  boulder,  "At  this 
very  moment  she  is  here,  she  is  in  Raxton.  In  a  certain  little 
cottage  there  is  a  certain  little  room."  And  then  I  longed  to 
leave  the  sands,  to  go  and  stand  in  front  of  Wynne's  cottage 
and  dream  there.  But  that  would  be  too  foolish.  "I  must 
get  home,"  I  thought.  "The  night  will  pass  somehow,  and 
in  the  morning  I  shall,  as  sure  as  fate,  see  her  flitting  about 
the  sands  she  loves,  and  then  what  I  have  sworn  to  say  to 
her  I  will  say,  and  what  I  have  sworn  to  do  I  will  do,  come 
what  will." 

Then  came  the  puzzling  question,  how  was  I  to  greet  her 
when  we  met?  Was  I  to  run  up  and  kiss  her,  and  hear  her 
say,  "Oh,  I'm  so  pleased!"  as  she  would  sometimes  say  when 
I  kissed  her  of  yore?  No;  her  deportment  in  the  morning 
forbade  tJiat.  Or  was  I  to  raise  my  hat  and  walk  up  to  her 
saying,  "How  do  you  do,  Miss  Wynne?  I'm  glad  to  see 
you  back.  Miss  Wynne,"  for  she  was  now  neither  child  nor 
young  woman,  she  was  a  "girl."  Perhaps  I  had  better  rush 
up  to  her  in  a  bluff,  hearty  way,  and  say :  "How  do  you  do, 
Miss  Winifred?  Delighted  to  see  you  back  to  Raxton." 
Finally,  I  decided  that  circumstances  must  guide  me  en- 
tirely, and  I  sat  upon  the  boulder  meditating. 

After  a  while  I  saw,  or  thought  I  saw,  in  the  far  distance, 
close  to  the  waves,  a  moving  figure  among  the  patches  of 
rocks  and  stones  (some  black  and  some  white)  that  break  the 
continuity  of  the  sand  on  that  shore  at  low  water. 

When  the  figure  got  nearer  I  perceived  it  to  be  a  woman, 
a  girl,  who,  every  now  and  then,  was  stooping  as  if  to  pick 
up  something  from  the  pools  of  water  left  by  the  ebbing 
tide  imprisoned  amid  the  encircling  rocks.  At  first  I 
watched  the  figure,  wondering  in  a  lazy  and  dreamy  way 
what  girl  could  be  out  there  so  late. 

But  all  at  once  I  began  to  catch  my  breath  and  gasp.  The 
sea-smells  had  become  laden  with  a  kind  of  paradisal  per- 
fume, ineffably  sweet,  but  difficult  to  breathe  all  of  a  sudden. 
My  heart  too — what  was  amiss  with  that?  And  why  did 
the  muscles  of  my  body  seem  to  melt  like  wax?  The  lonely 
wanderer  by  the  sea  could  be  none  other  than  Winifred. 

"It  is  she!"  I  said.  "There  is  no  beach-woman  or  shore- 
prowling  girl  who,  without  raising  an  arm  to  balance  her 
body,  without  a  totter  or  a  slip,  could  step  in  that  way  upon 
stones  some  of  which  are  as  slippery  as  ice  with  gelatinous 
weeds  and  slime,  while  others  are  as  sharp  as  razors.     To 


The  Moonlight  Cross  of  the  Gnostics      ^j 

walk  like  that  the  63-6  must  be  my  darling's,  that  is  to  say, 
an  eye  as  sure  as  a  bird's;  the  ball  of  the  foot  must  be  the 
ball  of  a  certain  little  foot  I  have  often  had  in  my  hand  wet 
with  sea-water  and  gritty  with  sand.  For  such  work  a 
mountaineer  or  a  cragsman,  or  Winifred,  is  needed."  Then  1 
recalled  her  love  of  marine  creatures,  her  delight  in  seaweed, 
of  which  she  would  weave  the  most  astonishing  chaplets  and 
necklaces  coloured  like  the  rainbow,  "seaweed  boas"  and 
seaweed  turbans,  calling  herself  the  princess  of  the  sea  (as 
indeed  she  was),  and  calling  me  her  prince.  "Yes,"  said  I, 
"it  is  certainly  she;"  and  when  at  last  I  espied  a  little  dog 
by  her  side,  Tom  Wynne's  little  dog  Snap  (a  descendant  of 
the  original  Snap  of  our  never-to-be-forgotten  seaside  ad- 
ventures)— when  I  espied  all  these  things  I  said,  "Then  the 
hour  is  come." 

By  this  time  my  heart  had  settled  down  to  a  calmer  throb, 
the  paradisal  scent  had  become  more  supportable,  and  I 
grew  master  of  myself  again.  I  was  going  towards  her, 
when  I  stayed  my  steps,  for  she  was  already  making  her 
way,  entirely  unconscious  of  my  presence,  towards  the 
boulder  where  I  sat. 

"I  know  what  I  will  do,"  I  said ;  "I  will  fling  myself  flat 
on  the  sands  behind  the  boulder  and  watch  her.  I  will  ob- 
serve her  without  being  myself  observed." 

I  was  in  the  mood  when  one  tries  sportfully  to  deceive 
one's  self  as  to  the  depth  and  intensity  of  the  emotion  within. 
Perhaps  I  would  and  perhaps  I  would  not  speak  to  her  at 
all  that  night;  but  if  I  did  speak,  I  would  say  and  do  what 
(on  that  day  when  I  set  out  for  school)  I  had  sworn  to 
say  and  do. 

So  there  I  lay  hidden  by  the  boulder  and  watched  her. 
She  made  the  circuit  of  each  pool  that  lay  across  her  path 
towards  the  cliffs, — made  it  apparently  for  the  childish  en- 
joyment of  balancing  herself  on  stones  and  snapping  her 
fingers  at  the  dog,  who  looked  on  with  philosophic  indilTer- 
ence  at  such  a  frivolous  waste  of  force.  Yes,  though  a  tall 
girl  of  seventeen,  she  was  the  same  incomparable  child  who 
had  coloured  my  life  and  stirred  the  entire  air  of  my  imagi- 
nation with  the  breezes  of  a  new  heaven.  The  voice  of  the 
tumbling  sea  in  the  distance,  the  caresses  of  the  tender 
breeze,  the  wistful  gaze  of  the  great  moon  overhead,  were 
companionship  enough  for  her — for  her  whose  loveliness 
would  have  enchanted  a  world.    She  had  no  idea  that  there 


58  Aylwin 

was  at  ihis  inoiiient  stepping  round  those  black  stones  the 
loveliest  woman  then  upon  the  earth.  If  she  had  had  that 
idea  she  would  still  have  been  the  star  of  all  womanhood, 
but  she  would  not  have  been  Winifred.  A  charm  superior 
to  all  other  women's  charm  she  still  would  have  had ;  but 
she  would  not  have  been  Winifred. 

When  she  left  the  rocks  and  came  upon  the  clear  sand, 
she  stopped  and  looked  at  her  sweet  shadow  in  the  moon- 
light. Then,  with  the  self-pleasing  playfulness  of  a  kitten, 
she  stood  and  put  herself  into  all  kinds  of  postures  to  see 
what  varying  silhouettes  they  would  make  on  the  hard  and 
polished  sand  (that  shone  with  a  soft  lustre  like  satin);  now 
throwing  up  one  arm,  now  another,  and  at  last  making  a 
pirouette,  twirling  her  shawl  round,  trying  to  keep  it  in  a 
horizontal  position  by  the  rapidity  of  her  movements. 

The  interest  of  the  philosophic  Snap  was  aroused  at  last. 
He  began  wheeling  and  barking  round  her,  tearing  up  the 
sand  as  he  went  like  a  little  whirlwind.  This  induced  Wini- 
fred to  redouble  her  gymnastic  exertions.  She  twirled 
round  with  the  velocity  of  an  engine  wheel.  At  last,  find- 
ing the  enjoyment  it  gave  to  Snap,  she  changed  the  per- 
formance by  taking  off  her  hat,  flinging  it  high  in  the  air, 
catching  it,  flinging  it  up  again  and  again,  while  the  moving 
shadow  it  made  was  hunted  along  the  sand  by  Snap  with  a 
volley  of  deafening  barks.  By  this  time  she  had  got  close 
to  me,  but  she  was  too  busy  to  see  me.  Then  she  began  to 
dance — the  very  same  dance  with  which  she  used  to  enter- 
tain me  in  those  happy  days.  I  advanced  from  my  stone, 
dodging  and  slipping  behind  her,  unobserved  even  by  Snap, 
so  intent  were  these  two  friends  upon  this  entertainment, 
got  up,  one  would  think,  for  whatsoever  sylphs  or  gnomes 
or  water  sprites  might  be  looking  on. 

How  could  I  address  in  the  language  of  passion,  which 
alone  would  have  expressed  my  true  feelings,  a  dancing 
fairy  such  as  this? 

"Bravo!"  I  said,  as  she  stopped,  panting  and  breathless. 
"Why,  Winifred,  you  dance  better  than  ever!" 

She  leaped  away  in  alarm  and  confusion;  while  Snap,  on 
the  contrary,  welcomed  me  with  much  joy. 

"Oh,  I  beg  your  pardon,  sir,"  she  said;  not  looking  at 
me  with  the  blunt  frankness  of  childhood,  as  the  little 
woman  of  the  old  days  used  to  do,  but  dropping  her  eyes. 
'T  didn't  see  you." 


The  Moonlight  Cross  of  the  Gnostics      59 

''But  /  saw  you,  Winifred;  I  have  been  watching  you  for 
the  last  quarter  of  an  hour." 

"Oh,  you  never  have!"  said  she,  in  distress;  "what  could 
you  have  thought?  I  was  only  trying  to  cheer  up  poor 
Snap,  who  is  out  of  sorts.  What  a  mad  romp  you  must 
have  thought  me,  sir!" 

"Why,  what's  the  matter  with  Snap?" 

"I  don't  know.  Poor  Snap"  (stooping  down  to  fondle 
him,  and  at  the  same  time  to  hide  her  face  from  me,  for  she 
was  talking  against  time  to  conceal  her  great  confusion  and 
agitation  at  seeing  me.    That  was  perceptible  enough). 

Then  she  remembered  she  was  hatless. 

"Oh,  dear,  wliere's  my  hat?"  said  she,  looking  round. 

I  had  picked  up  the  hat  before  accosting  her,  and  it  was 
now  dangling  behind  me.  I,  too,  began  talking  against 
time,  for  the  beating  of  my  heart  began  again  at  the  thought 
of  what  I  was  going  to  say  and  do. 

"Hat!"  I  said;  "do  you  wear  hats,  Winifred?  I  should 
as  soon  have  thought  of  hearing  the  Queen  of  the  Tylwyth 
Teg  ask  for  her  hat  as  you,  after  such  goings-on  as  those 
I  have  just  been  witnessing.  You  see  I  have  not  forgotten 
the  Welsh  you  taught  me." 

"Oh,  but  my  hat — where  is  it?"  cried  she,  vexed  and 
sorely  ashamed.  So  different  from  the  unblenching  child 
who  loved  to  stand  hatless  and  feel  the  rain-drops  on  her 
bare  head! 

"Well,  Winifred,  I've  found  a  hat  on  the  sand,"  I  said; 
"here  it  is." 

"Thank  you,  sir,"  said  she,  and  stretched  out  her  hand 
for  it. 

"No,"  said  I,  "I  don't  for  one  moment  believe  in  its  be- 
longing to  you,  any  more  than  it  belongs  to  the  Queen  of 
the  'Fair  People.'  But  if  you'll  let  me  put  it  on  your  head 
I'll  give  you  the  hat  I've  found,"  and  with  a  rapid  movement 
I  advanced  and  put  it  on  her  head.  I  had  meant  to  seize 
that  moment  for  saying  what  I  had  to  say,  but  was  obliged  to 
Vi'ait. 

An  expression  of  such  genuine  distress  overspread  her 
face,  that  I  regretted  having  taken  the  liberty  with  her.  Her 
bearing  altogether  was  puzzling  me.  She  seemed  instinct- 
ively to  feel  as  I  felt,  that  raillery  was  the  only  possible  atti- 
tude to  take  up  in  a  situation  so  extremely  romantic — a 
meeting  on  the  sands  at  night  between  me  and  her  who  was 


6o  Aylwin 

neither  child  nor  woman — and  yet  she  seemed  distressed 
at  the  raillery. 

Embarrassment  was  rapidly  coming  between  us. 

There  was  a  brief  silence,  during  which  Winifred  seemed 
trying  to  move  away  from  me. 

"Did  you — did  you  see  me  from  the  cliffs,  sir,  and  come 
down?"  said  Winifred. 

"Winifred,"  said  I,  "the  poHte  thing  to  say  would  be 
'Yes';  but  you  know  'Fighting  Hal'  never  was  remarkable 
for  politeness,  so  I  will  say  frankly  that  I  did  not  come  down 
from  the  cliffs  on  seeing  you.  But  when  I  did  see  you,  I 
wasn't  very  likely  to  return  without  speaking  to  you." 

"I  am  locked  out,"  said  Winifred,  in  explanation  of  her 
moonlight  ramble.  "My  father  went  ofif  to  Dullingham  with 
the  key  in  his  pocket  while  I  and  Snap  were  in  the  garden, 
so  we  have  to  wait  till  his  return.  Good  night,  sir,"  and  she 
gave  me  her  hand.  I  seemed  to  feel  the  fingers  round  my 
heart,  and  knew  that  I  was  turning  very  pale.  "The  same 
little  sunburnt  fingers,"  I  said,  as  I  retained  them  in  mine — 
"just  the  same,  Wmifred!  But  it's  not 'good  night' yet.  No, 
no,  it's  not  good  night  yet;  and,  Winifred,  if  you  dare  to 
call  me  'sir'  again,  I  declare  I'll  kiss  you  where  you  stand.  I 
will,  Winifred.  I'll  put  my  arms  right  around  that  slender 
waist  and  kiss  you  under  that  moon,  as  sure  as  you  stand  on 
these  sands." 

"Then  I  will  not  call  you  'sir,'  "  said  Winifred,  laughingly. 
"Certainly  I  will  not  call  you  'sir,'  if  that  is  to  be  the 
penalty." 

"Winifred,"  said  I,  "the  last  time  that  I  remember  to  have 
heard  you  say  'certainly'  was  on  this  very  spot.  You  then 
pronounced  it  'certumly,'  and  that  was  when  I  asked  you 
if  I  might  be  your  lover.  You  said  'certumly'  on  that  occa- 
sion without  the  least  hesitation." 

Winifred,  as  I  could  see,  even  by  the  moonlight,  was 
blushing,  "Ah,  those  childish  days!"  she  said.  "How  de- 
lightful they  were,  sir!" 

"'Sir'  again!"  said  I.  "Now,  Winifred,  I  am  going  to 
execute  my  threat — I  am  indeed." 

She  put  up  her  hands  before  her  face  and  said: 

"Oh,  don't!  please  don't." 

The  action  no  doubt  might  seem  coquettish,  but  the  tone 
of  her  voice  was  so  genuine,  so  serious — so  agitated  even — 
that  I  paused;  I  paused  in  bewilderment  and  perplexity 


The  Moonlight  Cross  of  the  Gnostics     6 1 

concerning  us  both.  I  observed  that  her  fingers  shook  as 
she  held  them  before  her  face.  That  she  should  be  agitated 
at  seeing  me  after  so  long  a  separation  did  not  surprise  me, 
I  being  deeply  agitated  myself.  It  was  the  nature  of  her 
emotion  tliat  puzzled  me,  until  suddenly  I  remembered  my 
mother's  words. 

I  perceived  then  that,  child  of  Nature  as  she  still  was, 
some  one  had  given  her  a  careful  training  which  had  trans- 
figured my  little  Welsh  rustic  into  a  lady.  She  had  not  failed 
to  apprehend  the  anomaly  of  her  present  position — on  the 
moonlit  sands  with  me.  Though  I  could  not  break  free  from 
the  old  equal  relations  between  us,  Winifred  had  been  able  to 
do  so. 

"To  her,"  I  thought  with  shame,  "my  ofifering  to  kiss  her 
at  such  a  place  and  time  must  have  seemed  an  insult.  The 
very  fact  of  my  attempting  to  do  so  must  have  seemed  to 
indicate  an  offensive  consciousness  of  the  difference  of  our 
social  positions.  It  must  have  seemed  to  show  that  I  recog- 
nized a  distinction  between  the  drunken  organist's  daughter 
and  a  lady." 

I  saw  now,  indeed,  that  she  felt  this  keenly;  and  I  knew 
that  it  was  nothing  but  the  sweetness  of  her  nature,  coupled 
with  the  fond  recollection  of  the  old  happy  days,  that  re- 
strained that  high  spirit  of  hers,  and  prevented  her  from  giv- 
ing expression  to  her  indignation  and  disgust. 

All  this  was  shown  by  the  appealing  look  on  her  sweet, 
fond  face,  and  I  was  touched  to  the  heart. 

"Winifred — Miss  Wynne,"  I  said,  "I  beg  your  pardon 
most  sincerely.  The  shadow-dance  has  been  mainly  an- 
swerable for  my  folly.  You  did  look  so  exactly  the  little 
Winifred,  my  heart's  sister,  that  I  felt  it  impossible  to 
treat  you  otherwise  than  as  that  dear  child-friend  of  vears 
ago." 

A  look  of  delight  broke  over  her  face. 

"I  felt  sure  it  was  so,"  she  said.  "But  it  is  a  relief  that  you 
have  said  it."    And  the  tears  came  to  her  eyes. 

"Thank  you,  Winifred,  for  having  pardoned  me.  I  feel 
that  you  would  have  forgiven  no  one  else  as  you  have  for- 
given me.  I  feel  that  you  would  not  have  forgiven  any  one 
else  than  your  old  child-companion,  whom  on  a  memorable 
occasion  you  threatened  to  hit,  and  then  had  not  the  heart  to 
do  so." 

"I  don't  think  I  could  hit  you"  said  she,  in  a  meditative 


62  Aylwin 

tone  of  perfect  unconsciousness  as  to  the  bewitching  import 
of  her  speech. 

"Don't  you  think  you  could?"  I  said,  drawing  nearer,  but 
governing  my  passion. 

"No,"  said  she,  looking  now  for  the  first  time  with  those 
wide-open  confiding  eyes,  which,  as  a  child,  were  the  chief 
characteristic  of  her  face,  "I  don't  think  I  could  hit  you, 
whatever  you  did." 

"Couldn't  you,  Winifred?"  I  said,  coming  still  nearer,  in 
order  to  drink  to  the  full  the  wonder  of  her  beauty,  the  thrill 
at  my  heart  bringing,  as  I  felt,  a  pallor  to  my  cheek.  "Don't 
you  think  you  could  hit  your  old  playfellow,  Winifred?" 

"No,"  she  said,  still  gazing  in  the  same  dreamy,  reminis- 
cent way  straight  into  my  eyes  as  of  yore.  "As  a  child  you 
were  so  delightful.    And  then  you  were  so  kind  to  me!" 

At  that  word  "kind"  from  her  to  me  I  could  restrain  myself 
no  longer;  I  shouted  with  a  wild  laughter  of  uncontrollable 
passion  as  I  gazed  at  her  through  tears  of  love  and  admira- 
tion and  deep  gratitude — gazed  till  I  was  blind.  My  throat 
throbbed  till  it  ached:  I  could  get  out  no  more  words;  I 
could  only  gaze.  At  my  shout  Winifred  stood  bewildered 
and  confused.  She  did  not  understand  a  mood  like  that. 
Having  got  myself  under  control,  I  said: 

"Winifred,  it  is  not  my  doing;  it  is  Fate's  doing  that  we 
meet  here  on  this  night,  and  that  I  am  driven  to  say  here 
what  I  had  as  a  schoolboy  sworn  should  be  said  whenever 
we  should  meet  again." 

"I  think,"  said  Winifred,  pulling  herself  up  with  the  dig- 
nity of  a  queen,  "that  if  you  have  anything  important  to  say 
to  me  it  had  better  be  at  a  more  seasonable  time  than  at 
this  hour  of  night,  and  at  a  more  seasonable  place  than  on 
these  sands." 

"No,  Winifred,"  said  I,  "the  time  is  nozv,  and  the  place  is 
here — here  on  this  very  spot  where  once  on  a  time,  you 
said  'certumly'  when  a  little  lover  asked  your  hand.  It  is 
now  and  here,  Winifred,  that  I  will  say  what  I  have  to  say." 

"And  what  is  that,  sir?"  said  Winifred,  much  perplexed 
and  disturbed. 

"I  have  to  say,  Winifred,  that  the  man  does  not  live  and 
never  has  lived,"  said  I,  with  suppressed  vehemence,  "who 
loved  a  woman  as  I  love  you." 

"Oh,  sir!  oh,  Henry!"  returned  Winifred,  trembling,  then 
standing  still  and  whiter  than  the  moon. 


The  Moonlight  Cross  of  the  Gnostics      63 

"And  the  reason  why  no  mar.  i,as  ever  loved  a  woman 
as  I  love  you,  Winifred,  is  because  your  i,:.o.f^]i^  or  anything- 
like  your  match,  has  never  trod  the  earth  before. 

"Oh,  Henry,  my  dear  Henry!  you  must  not  say  su^i, 
things  to  me,  your  poor  Winifred." 

"But  that  isn't  all  that  I  swore  I'd  say  to  you,  Winifred." 

"Don't  say  any  more — not  to-night,  not  to-night." 

"What  I  swore  I  would  ask  you,  Winifred,  is  this:  will  you 
be  Henry's  wife?" 

She  gave  one  hysterical  sob,  and  swayed  till  she  nearly 
fell  on  the  sand,  and  said,  while  her  face  shone  like  a 
pearl :  .j       '^  ■•    i :», 

"Henry's  wife!" 

She  recovered  herself  and  stood  and  looked  at  me;  her 
lips  moved,  but  I  waited  in  vain — waited  in  a  fever  of  ex- 
pectation— for  her  answer.  None  came.  I  gazed  into  her 
eyes,  but  they  now  seemed  filled  with  visions — visions  of  the 
great  race  to  which  she  belonged — visions  in  which  her  Eng- 
lish lover  had  no  place.  Suddenly,  and  for  the  first  time  I 
felt  that  she  who  had  inspired  me  with  this  all-conquering 
passion,  though  the  penniless  child  of  a  drunken  organist, 
was  the  daughter  of  Snowdon — a  representative  of  the  Cym- 
ric race  that  was  once  so  mighty,  and  is  still  more  romantic  in 
its  associations  than  all  others.  Already  in  the  little  talk  I 
had  had  with  her  I  began  to  guess  what  I  realised  before  the 
evening  was  over,  that,  owing  to  the  influence  of  the  Eng- 
lish lady,  Miss  Dalrymple,  who  had  lodged  at  the  cottage 
with  her,  she  was  more  than  my  own  equal  in  culture,  and 
could  have  held  her  own  with  almost  any  girl  of  her  own  age 
in  England.  It  was  only  in  her  subjection  to  Cymric  super- 
stitions that  she  was  benighted. 

"Winnie,"  I  murmured,  "what  have  you  to  say?" 

After  a  while  her  eyes  seemed  to  clear  of  the  visions,  and 
she  said: 

"What  changes  have  come  upon  us  both,  Henry,  since 
that  childish  betrothal  on  the  sands!" 

"Happy  changes  for  one  of  the  child-lovers,"  I  said — 
"happy  changes  for  the  one  who  was  then  a  lonely  cripple 
shut  out  from  all  sympathy  save  that  which  the  other  child- 
lover  could  give." 

"And  yet  you  then  seemed  happy,  Henry — happy  v.ith 
Winnie  to  help  you  up  the  gangways.  And  how  happy 
Winnie  was!    But  now  the  child-lover  is  a  cripple  no  longer: 


64  Aylwin 

he  is  very,  very  strouo~i-  fs  so  strong  that  he  could  carry 
Winnie  up  th<-  ^--'s^ways  m  his  arms,  I  think." 

Th^  *juiil  of  natural  pride  which  such  recognition  of  my 
^x^ysical  powers  would  otherwise  have  given  me  was  quelled 
by  a  something  in  the  tone  in  which  she  spoke. 

"And  he  is  powerful  in  every  way,"  she  went  on,  as  if 
talking  to  herself.  "He  is  a  great  rich  Englishman  to  whom 
(as  auntie  was  never  tired  of  saying)  that  childish  betrothal 
must  needs  seem  a  dream — a  quaint  and  pretty  dream." 

"And  so  your  aunt  said  that,  Winnie.  How  far  from  the 
truth  she  was  you  see  to-night." 

"Yes,  she  thought  you  would  forget  all  about  me;  and  yet 
she  could  not  have  felt  quite  confident  about  it,  for  she  made 
me  promise  that  if  you  should  not  forget  me — if  you  should 
ever  ask  me  what  you  have  just  asked — she  made  me 
promise " 

"What,  Winnie?  what?  She  did  not  make  you  promise 
that  you  would  refuse  me?" 

"That  is  what  she  asked  me  to  promise." 

"But  you  did  not." 

"I  did  not." 

"No,  no!  you  did  not,  Winnie.  My  darling  refused  to 
make  any  such  cruel,  monstrous  promise  as  that." 

"But  I  promised  her  that  I  would  in  such  an  event 
wait  a  year — at  least  a  year — before  betrothing  myself  to 
you." 

"Shame!  shame!  What  made  her  do  this  cruel  thing?  A 
year!  wait  for  a  year!" 

"She  brought  forward  many  reasons,  Henry,  but  upon 
two  of  them  she  was  constantly  dwelling." 

"And  what  were  these?" 

"Well,  the  news  of  the  death  of  your  brother  Frank  of 
course  reached  us  in  Shire-Carnarvon,  and  how  well  I  re- 
member hearing  my  aunt  say,  'Henry  Aylwin  will  be  one  of 
the  wealthiest  landowners  in  England.'  And  I  remember 
how  my  heart  sank  at  her  words,  for  I  was  always  thinking 
of  the  dear  little  lame  boy  with  the  language  of  suffering  in 
his  eyes  and  the  deep  music  of  sorrow  in  his  voice." 

"Your  heart  sank,  Winnie,  and  why?" 

"I  felt  as  if  a  breath  of  icy  air  had  blown  between  us, 
dividing  us  forever.  And  then  my  aunt  began  to  talk  about 
you  and  your  future." 

After  some  trouble  I  persuaded  Winnie  to  tell  me  what 


The  Moonlight  Cross  of  the  Gnostics      65 

was  the  homily  that  this  aunt  of  hers  preached  a  propos  of 
Frank's  death.  And  as  she  talked  I  could  not  help  observ- 
ing what,  as  a  child,  I  had  only  observed  in  a  dim,  semi-con- 
scious way — a  strange  kind  of  double  personality  in  Winnie. 
At  one  moment  she  seemed  to  me  to  be  nothing  but  the 
dancing  fairy  of  the  sands,  objective  and  unconscious  as  a 
young  animal  playing  to  itself,  at  another  she  seemed  the 
mouthpiece  of  the  narrow  world-wisdom  of  this  Welsh  aunt. 
No  sooner  had  she  spoken  of  herself  as  a  friendless,  home- 
less girl,  than  her  brow  began  to  shine  with  the  pride  of  the 
Cymry. 

"My  aunt,"  said  she,  "used  to  tell  me  that  until  disaster 
came  upon  my  uncle,  and  they  were  reduced  to  living  upon 
a  very  narrow  income,  he  and  she  never  really  knew  what 
love  was — they  never  really  knew  how  rich  their  hearts  were 
in  the  capacity  of  loving." 

"Ah,  I  thought  so,"  I  said  bitterly.  "I  thought  the  text 
was, 

"  'Love  in  a  hut,  with  water  and  a  crust.'  " 

"No,"  said  Winifred  firmly,  "that  was  not  the  text.  She 
believed  that  the  wolf  must  not  be  very  close  to  the  door 
behind  which  love  is  nestling." 

"Then  what  did  she  believe?  In  the  name  of  common 
sense,  Winnie,  what  did  she  believe?" 

"She  believed,"  said  Winnie,  her  cheeks  flushing  and  her 
eyes  brightening  as  she  went  on,  "that  of  all  the  schemes 
devised  by  man's  evil  genius  to  spoil  his  nature,  to  make  him 
self-indulgent,  and  luxurious,  and  tyrannical,  and  incapable 
of  understanding  what  the  word  Move'  means,  the  scheme 
of  showering  great  wealth  upon  him  is  the  most  perfect." 

"Ah,  yes,  yes;  the  old  nonsense.  Easier  for  a  camel  to 
pass  through  the  eye  of  a  needle  than  for  a  rich  man  to  enter 
the  kingdom  of  love.  And  in  what  way  did  she  enlarge  upon 
this  most  charitable  theme?" 

"She  told  me  dreadful  things  about  the  demoralising 
power  of  riches  in  our  time." 

"Dreadful  things!     What  were  they,  Winnie?" 

"She  told  me  how  insatiable  is  the  greed  for  pleasure  at 
this  time.  She  told  mc  that  the  passion  of  vanity — 'the 
greatest  of  all  the  human  passions,'  as  she  used  to  say — has 
taken  the  form  of  money- worship  in  our  time,  sapping  all 
the  noblest  instincts  of  men  and  women,  and  in  rich  people 


66  Aylwin 

poisoning  even  parental  affection,  making  the  mother  thirst 
for  the  pleasures  which  in  old  days  she  would  only  have  tried 
to  win  for  her  child.  She  told  me  stories — dreadful  stories — 
about  children  with  expectations  of  great  wealth  who 
watched  the  poor  grey  hairs  of  those  who  gave  them  birth, 
and  counted  the  years  and  months  and  days  that  kept  them 
from  the  gold  which  modern  society  finds  to  be  more  pre- 
cious than  honour,  family,  heroism,  genius,  and  all  that  was 
held  precious  in  less  materialised  times.  She  told  me  a 
thousand  other  things  of  this  kind,  and  when  I  grew  older 
she  put  into  my  hand  what  w'as  written  on  the  subject." 

"Good  God!  Has  the  narrow-minded  tomfoolery  got  a 
literature?" 

Winnie  went  on  with  her  eloquent  account  of  her  aunt's 
doctrines,  and  to  my  surprise  I  found  that  there  actually  was 
a  literature  on  the  subject 

Winnie's  bright  eyes  had  actually  pored  over  old  and  long 
Chartist  tracts  translated  into  Welsh,  and  books  on  the 
Christian  Socialism  of  Charles  Kingsley,  and  pamphlets  on 
more  recent  kinds  of  Socialism. 

As  she  went  on  I  could  not  help  murmuring  now  and 
then,  "What  surroundings  for  my  Winnie!" 

"And  the  result  of  all  this  was,  Winnie,  that  your  aunt 
asked  you  to  promise  not  to  marry  a  man  demoralised  by 
privileges  and  made  contemptible  by  wealth." 

"That  is  what  she  wanted  me  to  promise;  but  as  I  have 
said,  I  did  not.  But  I  did  promise  to  wait  for  a  year  and  see 
what  effect  wealth  would  have  upon  you." 

"Did  your  aunt  not  tell  you  also  that  the  man  who  marrie? 
you  can  never  be  immanned  by  wealth,  because  he  will 
know  that  everything  he  can  give  is  as  dross  when  set 
against  Winnie's  love  and  Winnie's  beauty?  Did  she  not 
also  tell  you  that?" 

"Love  and  beauty!"  said  Winnie.  "Even  if  a  woman's 
beauty  did  not  depend  for  existence  upon  the  eyes  that 
look  upon  it,  I  should  want  to  give  more  to  my  hero  than 
love  and  beauty.  I  should  want  to  give  him  help  in  the  bat- 
tle of  life,  Henry.  I  should  want  to  buckle  on  his  armour, 
and  sharpen  the  point  of  his  lance,  and  whet  the  edge  of 
his  sword;  a  rich  man's  armour  is  bank-notes,  and  Winnie 
knows  nothing  of  such  paper.  His  spear,  I  am  told,  is  a 
bullion  bar,  and  Winnie's  fingers  scarcely  know  the  toucli 
of  gold." 


The  Moonlight  Cross  of  the  Gnostics      67 

"Then  you  agree,  Winnie,  with  these  strange  views  of 
your  aunt?" 

"I  do  partly  agree  with  them  now.  Ever  since  I  saw  you 
to-day  in  the  churchyard  I  have  partly  agreed  with  them." 

"And  why?" 

"Because  already  prosperity  or  bodily  vigour  or  some- 
thing has  changed  your  eyes  and  changed  the  tone  of  your 
voice." 

"You  mean  that  my  eyes  are  no  longer  so  full  of  trouble; 
and  as  to  my  voice — how  should  my  voice  not  change,  see- 
ing that  it  was  the  voice  of  a  child  when  you  last  listened 
to  it?" 

"It  is  impossible  for  me  even  now,  after  I  have  thought 
about  it  so  much,  to  put  into  words  that  expression  in  your 
eyes  which  won  me  as  a  child.  All  I  knew  at  the  time  was 
that  it  fascinated  me.  And  as  I  now  recall  it,  all  I  know  is 
that  your  gaze  then  seemed  full  of  something  which  I  can 
give  a  name  to  now,  though  I  did  not  understand  it  then — 
the  pathos  and  tenderness  and  yearning,  which  come,  as  I 
have  been  told,  from  suffering,  and  that  your  voice  seemed 
to  have  the  same  message.  That  expression  and  that  tone 
are  gone — they  will,  of  course,  never  return  to  you  now. 
Your  life  is,  and  will  be,  too  prosperous  for  that.  But  still 
I  hope  and  believe  that  in  a  year's  time  prosperity  will  not 
have  worked  in  you  any  of  the  mischief  that  my  aunt  feared. 
For  you  have  a  noble  nature,  Henry,  and  to  spoil  you  will 
not  be  easy.  You  will  never  be  the  dear  little  Henry  I  loved, 
but  you  will  still  be  nobler  and  greater  than  other  men,  I 
think." 

"Do  you  really  mean  that  my  lameness  was  a  positive  at- 
traction to  you?  Do  you  really  mean  that  the  very  change 
in  me  which  I  thought  would  strengthen  the  bond  between 
us — my  restoration  to  health — weakens  it?  That  is  impos- 
sible, Winnie." 

She  remained  silent  for  a  time,  as  though  lost  in  thought, 
and  then  said  :  "I  do  not  believe  that  any  woman  can  under- 
stand the  movements  of  her  own  heart  where  love  is  con- 
cerned. My  aunt  used  to  say  I  was  a  strange  girl,  and  I  am 
afraid  I  am  strange  and  perverse.  She  used  to  say  that  in 
my  affections  I  was  like  no  other  creature  in  the  world." 

"How  should  Winifred  be  like  any  other  creature  in  the 
world?"  I  said.  "She  would  not  be  Winifred  if  she  were. 
But  what  did  vour  aunt  mean?" 


68  Aylwin 

"When  I  was  quite  a  little  child  she  noticed  that  I  was 
neglecting  a  favourite  mavis  which  I  used  to  delight  to  listen 
to  as  he  warbled  from  his  wicker  cage.  She  watched  me, 
and  found  that  my  attention  was  all  given  to  a  wounded  bird 
that  I  had  picked  up  on  the  Capel  Curig  road.  'Winnie/ 
she  said,  'nothing  can  ever  win  your  love  until  it  has  first 
won  your  pity.  A  bird  with  a  broken  wing  would  be  always 
more  to  you  than  a  sound  one!'  " 

"Your  aunt  was  right,"  I  said,  "as  no  one  should  know 
better  than  I.  For  was  it  not  the  new  kind  of  pity  shining 
in  those  eyes  of  yours  that  revealed  to  me  a  new  heaven 
in  my  loneliness?  And  when  my  brother  Frank  on  that  day 
in  the  wood  stood  over  us  in  all  the  pride  of  his  boyish 
strength,  do  I  not  remember  the  words  you  spoke?" 

"What  were  they?    I  have  quite  forgotten  them." 

"You  said,  'I  don't  think  I  could  love  any  one  very  much 
who  was  not  lame.'  " 

"Ah!  did  I  really  say  that?  It  was  quite  true,  Henry.  I 
could  admire  your  brother  very  much  for  being  so  hand- 
some and  strong  and  active,  but  he  was  too  independent  of 
love  to  win  love  from  me.  That  child-love  was  the  great 
educating  experience  of  my  life.  It  taught  me  the  bliss  of 
loving  the  afflicted — I  mean  the  bliss  of  loving  those  to 
whom  love  comes  as  the  very  breath  of  heaven." 

"Your  aunt  spoke  the  truth,  indeed,  when  she  said  you 
were  a  strange  girl.  But  is  it  really  possible  that  on  account 
of  the  blessings  God  has  given  me,  health  and  wealth  and 
strength — is  it  really  possible  that  on  account  of  those  very 
blessings  which  most  women  find  attractive  in  a  man  your 
heart  is  turned  from  me?  A  strange  girl,  indeed!"  I  mur- 
mured, lost  in  wonder  at  this  new  phase  of  the  mystery  of 
a  woman's  heart.  "Who  was  the  fool,"  I  said  to  myself, 
"who  said  most  women  have  no  characters  at  all?" 

For  this  conversation  with  Winnie  first  opened  my  eyes 
to  the  fact  that,  excepting  in  the  merest  superficial,  there  is 
a  far  greater  variety  in  women  than  in  men.  In  the  deepest 
movements  of  the  heart  no  two  women  are  alike.  Win- 
nie's eccentricity  of  character  was  a  revelation  indeed.  Ever 
since  my  return  to  bodily  strength  and  agility  I  had  been 
saying  to  myself,  "If  Winnie  could  only  see  me  now !  If 
Winnie  could  love  me  in  those  dark  days  that  she  turned  to 
sunshine — when  I  was  one  of  Destinj^'s  own  pariahs — if 
she   could   love   me  as  a  forlorn   cripple   hobbling  upon 


The  Moonlight  Cross  of  the  Gnostics      69 

crutches — what  would  be  her  feelings  if  she  could  see  me 
now?" 

As  these  thoughts  came  to  me  Winnie  seemed  to  read 
them  in  my  face,  for  she  said:  "Ah,  yes,  mine  is  indeed  a 
strange,  eccentric  nature.  After  I  was  separated  from  you 
my  thoughts  of  you  were  always  as  the  brave  little  cripple 
with  the  deep,  yearning  eyes,  who  could  not  get  up  the 
gangways  without  me.  I  used  to  think  about  you  in  Wales, 
and  especially  when  I  was  rambling  about  Snowdon,  until 
I  seemed  to  feel  again  the  pressure — delicious  pressure — of 
your  hand  on  my  shoulder  for  support.  I  shall  never  feel 
that  pressure  again,  Henry.  You  can  get  up  the  gangways 
of  life  without  me  now." 

"Who  knows,  Winifred,"  I  said,  "but  that  calamity  may 
yet  put  that  lost  light  into  my  eyes  and  that  lost  tone  into 
my  voice?  But  let  the  engagement  stand  thus,"  I  said,  smil- 
ing. "As  I  am  not  pledged  to  your  aunt  to  wait  for  a  year, 
let  ours  be  a  one-sided  betrothal.  Let  Hal  be  betrothed  to 
Winnie,  while  Winnie  is  not  betrothed  to  Hal  until  a  year 
has  proved  him  to  be  invulnerable  to  the  poisonous  mis- 
chief of  wealth." 

"That  would  indeed  be  something  new  in  betrothals,"  said 
Winifred  with  a  strange  smile. 

"Has  not  everything  in  connection  with  us  two  been 
new?"  I  said.  "Why  should  there  not  be  a  new  kind  of  be- 
trothal between  us?  Did  not  the  French  wit  say  that  in 
every  love  afifair  there  were  two  parties — one  who  is  loved, 
and  the  other  qui  se  laisse  aimer?" 

"No,  you  musn't  put  it  so,  dear  Henry;  you  musn't  put  it 
in  that  way.  My  aunt  did  not  object  to  the  child-betrothal 
of  long  ago;  she  did  not  object  to  the  little  harum-scarum 
Winnie  saying  'certumly'!  when  the  little  cripple  proposed 
to  her  on  the  boulder." 

"Let  us  renew  that  betrothal  and  be  children  again,"  I 
said. 

She  then  told  me  that  her  kind  friend  Miss  Dalrymple 
had  always  advised  her  to  seek  a  situation  as  governess  in 
Wales. 

"I  have,  now  determined  to  do  so,"  said  Winifred,  while 
a  mournful  look  came  into  her  eyes  which  I  found  it  easy 
to  understand,  knowing  as  I  did  what  she  must  already  have 
seen  of  her  father's  mode  of  life. 

"And,"  said  I,  "to  show  you  that  the  leprosy  of  wealth  you 


JO  Aylwin 

dread  has  not  destroyed  me  as  a  man,  I  will  in  a  year's  time 
go  to  Wales,  and  we  will  be  betrothed  on  Snowdon  (I  am 
afraid  we  can't  be  married  there),  and  we  will  be  married 
in  Wales  and  your  bridesmaids  shall  be  your  two  Gypsy 
friends." 


V. 

I  WONDER  what  words  could  render  that  love-dream  on  the 
dear  silvered  sands,  with  the  moon  overhead,  the  dark 
shadowy  cliffs  and  the  old  church  on  one  side,  and  the  North 
Sea  murmuring-  a  love-chime  on  the  other! 

SulBce  it  to  record  that  Winifred,  with  a  throb  in  her 
throat  (a  throb  that  prevented  her  from  pronouncing  her  n's 
with  the  clarity  that  some  might  have  desired),  said  "cer- 
tumly"  again  to  Henry's  suit, — "Certumly,  if  in  a  year's 
time  you  seek  me  out  in  the  mountains,  and  your  eyes  and 
voice  show  that  prosperity  has  not  spoiled  you,  but  that  you 
are  indeed  my  Henry."  And  this  being  settled  in  strict  ac- 
cordance with  her  aunt's  injunctions,  she  never  tried  to  dis- 
guise how  happy  she  w-as,  but  told  Henry  again  and  again 
in  answer  to  his  importunate  questions — told  him  with  her 
frank  courage  how  she  had  loved  him  from  the  first  in  the 
old  churchyard  as  a  child — loved  him  for  what  she  called  his 
love-eyes  ;  told  him — ah  !  what  did  she  not  tell  him  ?  I  must 
not  go  on.  These  things  should  not  be  written  about  at  all 
but  for  the  demands  of  my  story. 

And  how  soon  she  forgot  that  the  betrothal  was  all  on  one 
side!  I  could  write  out  every  word  of  that  talk.  I  remem- 
ber every  accent  of  her  voice,  every  variation  of  light  that 
came  and  went  in  her  eyes,  every  ripple  of  love-laughter, 
every  movement  of  her  body,  lissome  as  a  greyhound's, 
graceful  as  a  bird's.  For  fully  an  hour  it  lasted.  And  re- 
member, reader,  that  it  was  on  the  silvered  sands,  every  inch 
of  which  was  associated  with  some  reminiscence  of  child- 
hood; it  was  beneath  a  moon  smiling  as  fondly  and  brightly 
as  she  ever  smiled  on  the  domes  of  Venice  or  between  the 
trees  of  Fiesole;  it  was  by  the  margin  of  waves  whose  mur- 
murs were  soft  and  perfumed  as  Winifred's  own  breathings 
when  she  slept;  and  rememl:)er  that  the  girl  was  Winifred 
herself,  and  that  the  boy — the  happy  boy — had  Winifred's 


The  Moonlight  Cross  of  the  Gnostics      71 

love.  Ah!  but  that  last  element  of  that  hour's  bliss  is  just 
what  the  reader  cannot  realise,  because  he  can  only  know 
Winifred  through  these  poor  words.  That  is  the  distressing 
side  of  a  task  like  mine.  The  beloved  woman  here  called 
Winifred  (no  phantom  of  an  idle  imagination,  but  more  real 
to  me  and  dear  to  me  than  this  soul  and  body  I  call  my  own) 
— this  Winifred  can  only  live  for  you,  reader,  through  my 
feeble,  faltering  words;  and  yet  I  ask  you  to  listen  to  the 
story  of  such  a  love  as  mine. 

"Winnie,"  I  said,  'S'ou  have  often  as  a  child  sung  songs 
of  Snowdon  to  me  and  told  me  of  others  you  used  to  sing. 
I  should  love  to  hear  one  of  these  now,  with  the  chime  of 
the  North  Sea  for  an  accompaniment  instead  of  the  instru- 
ment you  tell  me  your  Gypsy  friend  used  to  play.  Before 
we  go  up  the  gangway,  do  sing  me  a  verse  of  one  of  those 
songs." 

After  some  little  persuasion  she  yielded  and  sang  in  a  soft 
undertone  the  following  verse: 

"I  met  in  a  glade  a  lone  little  maid 

At  the  foot  of  y  Wyddfa  the  white; 
Oh,  lissome  her  feet  as  the  mountain  hind, 

And  darker  her  hair  than  the  night; 
Her  cheek  was  like  the  mountain  rose, 

But  fairer  far  to  see, 
As  driving  along  her  sheep  with  a  song, 

Down  from  the  hills  came  she."* 

"What  a  beautiful  world  it  is!"  said  she,  in  a  half-whisper, 
as  we  were  about  to  part  at  the  cottage-door,  for  I  had  re- 
fused to  leave  her  on  the  sands  or  even  at  the  garden-gate. 
*T  should  like  to  live  forever,"  she  whispered;  "shouldn't 
you,  Henry?" 

"Well,  that  all  depends  upon  the  person  I  lived  with.  For 
instance,  I  shouldn't  care  to  live  for  ever  with  Widow 
Shales,  the  pale-faced  tailoress,  nor  yet  with  her  hump- 
backed son,  whose  hump  was  such  a  constant  source  of 
w  istful  wonder  and  solicitude  to  you  as  a  child." 

*"I\Ii  gwrddais  gynt  a  morwynig, 

Wrth  odreu  y  Wyddfa  wen, 
Un  ysgafn  ei  throed  fel  yr  ewig 

A  gwallt  fel  y  nos  ar  ci  plicn; 
1m  grudd  ocdd  fel  y  rhosyn, 

I JH  hardd  a  gwen  oi  gwawr; 
\\\  canu  can,  a'i  defaid  man. 

O'r  Wyddfa'n  d'od  i  lawr." 


j2  Aylwin 

She  gave  a  merry  little  laugh  of  reminiscence.  Then  she 
said,  "But  you  could  live  with  me  for  ever,  couldn't  you, 
Henry?"  plucking  a  leaf  from  the  grape-vine  on  the  wall  and 
putting  it  between  her  teeth. 

"For  ever  and  ever,  Winifred." 

"It  fills  me  with  wonder,"  said  she,  after  a  while,  "the 
thought  of  being  Henry's  wife.  It  is  so  delightful  and  yet 
so  fearful." 

By  this  I  knew  she  had  not  forgotten  that  look  of  hate 
on  my  mother's  face. 

She  put  her  hand  on  the  latch  and  found  that  the  door 
was  now  unlocked. 

"But  where  is  the  fearful  part  of  it,  Winifred?"  I  said.  "I 
am  not  a  cannibal." 

"You  ought  to  marry  a  great  English  lady,  dear,  and  I'm 
only  a  poor  girl;  you  seem  to  forget  all  about  that,  you  silly 
fond  boy.  You  forget  I'm  only  a  poor  girl — just  Winifred," 
she  continued. 

"Just  Winifred,"  I  said,  taking  her  hand  and  preventing 
her  from  lifting  the  latch. 

"I've  lived,"  said  she,  "in  a  little  cottage  like  this  with 
my  aunt  and  Miss  Dalrymple  and  done  everything." 

"Everything's  a  big  word,  Winifred.  What  may  every- 
thing include  in  your  case?" 

"Include!"  said  Winifred;  "oh,  everything,  housekeeping 
and " 

"Housekeeping!"  said  I.  "Racing  the  winds  with  Rhona 
Boswell  and  other  Gypsy  children  up  and  down  Snowdon — 
that's  been  your  housekeeping." 

"Cooking,"  said  Winifred,  maintaining  her  point. 

"Oh,  what  a  fib,  Winifred !  These  sunburnt  fingers  may 
have  picked  wild  fruits,  but  they  never  made  a  pie  in  their 
lives." 

"Never  made  a  pie!  I  make  beautiful  pies  and  things; 
and  when  we're  married  I'll  make  your  pies — may  I,  instead 
of  a  conceited  man-cook?" 

"No,  Winifred.  Never  make  a  pie  or  do  a  bit  of  cooking 
in  my  house,  I  charge  you." 

"Oh,  why  not?"  said  Winifred,  a  shade  of  disappointment 
overspreading  her  face.    "I  suppose  it's  unladylike  to  cook." 

"Because,"  said  I,  "once  let  me  taste  something  made  by 
these  tanned  fingers,  and  how  could  I  ever  afterwards  ear 
any  tiling  made  by  a  man-cook,  conceited  or  modest?     I 


The  Moonlight  Cross  of  the  Gnostics      73 

should  say  to  that  poor  cook,  'Where  is  the  Winifred  flavour, 
cook?  I  don't  taste  those  tanned  fingers  here.'  And  then, 
suppose  you  were  to  die  first,  Winifred,  why  I  should  have 
to  starve,  just  for  the  want  of  a  little  Winifred  flavour  in  the 
pie-crust.  Now  I  don't  want  to  starve,  and  you  sha'n't 
cook." 

"Oh,  Hal,  you  dear,  dear  fellow!"  shrieked  Winifred,  in 
an  ecstasy  of  delight  at  this  nonsense.  Then  her  deep  love 
overpowered  her  quite,  and  she  said,  her  eyes  suffused  with 
tears,  "Henry,  you  can't  think  how  I  love  you.  I'm  sure  I 
couldn't  live  even  in  heaven  without  you." 

Then  came  the  shadow  of  a  lich-owl,  as  it  whisked  past 
us  towards  the  apple-trees. 

"Why,  you'd  be  obliged  to  live  without  me,  Winifred,  if  I 
were  still  at  Raxton." 

"No,"  said  she,  "I'm  quite  sure  I  couldn't.  I  should  have 
to  come  in  the  winds  and  play  round  you  on  the  sands. 
I  should  have  to  peep  over  the  clouds  and  watch  you.  I 
should  have  to  follow  you  about  wherever  you  went. 
I  should  have  to  beset  you  till  you  said,  'Bother  Winnie !  I 
wish  she'd  keep  in  heaven.'  " 

I  saw,  however,  that  the  owl's  shadow  had  disturbed  her, 
and  I  lifted  the  latch  of  the  cottage  door  for  her.  We  were 
met  by  a  noise  so  loud  that  it  might  have  come  from  a  trom- 
bone. 

"Why,  what  on  earth  is  that?"  I  said. 

I  could  see  the  look  of  shame  break  over  Winifred's  feat- 
ures as  she  said  "Father."  Yes,  it  was  the  snoring  of  Wynne 
in  a  drunken  sleep:  it  filled  the  entire  cottage. 

The  poor  girl  seemed  to  feel  that  that  brutal  noise  had, 
somehow,  coarsened  her,  and  she  actually  half  shrank  from 
me  as  I  gave  her  a  kiss  and  left  her. 

Wondering  how  I  should  at  such  an  hour  get  into  the 
house  without  disturbing  my  mother  and  the  servants,  I 
passed  along  the  same  road  where,  as  a  crippled  child,  I  had 
hobbled  on  that  bright  afternoon  when  love  was  first  re- 
vealed to  me.  Ah,  what  a  different  love  was  this  which  was 
firing  my  blood,  and  making  dizzy  my  brain!  That  child- 
love  had  softened  my  heart  in  its  deep  distress,  and  widened 
my  soul.  This  new  and  mighty  passion  in  whose  grasp  I 
was,  this  irresistible  power  that  had  seized  and  possessed  my 
entire  being,  wrought  my  soul  in  quite  a  different  sort,  con- 
centrating and  narrowing  my  horizon  till  the  human  life  out- 


74  Aylwin 

side  the  circle  of  our  love  seemed  far,  far  away,  as -though 
I  were  gazing  through  the  wrong  end  of  a  telescope.  1 
had  learned  that  he  who  truly  loves  is  indeed  born  again, 
becomes  a  new  and  different  man.  Was  it  only  a  few  short 
hours  ago,  I  asked  myself,  that  I  was  listening  to  my  moth- 
er's attack  upon  Winifred?  Was  it  this  very  evening  that 
I  was  sitting  in  Dullingham  Church? 

How  far  away  in  the  past  seemed  those  events !  And  as  to 
my  mother's  anger  against  Winifred,  that  anger  and  cruel 
scorn  of  class  which  had  concerned  me  so  much,  how  insig- 
nificant now  seemed  this  and  every  other  obstacle  in  love's 
path!  I  looked  up  at  the  moonlit  sky;  I  leaned  upon  a  gate 
and  looked  across  the  silent  fields  where  Winifred  and  I 
used  to  gather  violets  in  spring,  hedge-roses  in  summer, 
mushrooms  in  autumn,  and  I  said,  "I  will  marry  her;  she 
shall  be  mine;  she  shall  be  mine,  though  all  the  powers  on 
earth,  all  the  powers  in  the  universe,  should  say  nay." 

As  I  spoke  I  saw  that  lights  were  flashing  to  and  fro  in 
the  windows  of  the  Hall.  "My  poor  father  is  dead,"  I  said. 
I  turned  and  ran  up  the  road.  "Oh,  that  I  could  have  seen 
him  once  again!"  At  the  hall  door  I  was  met  by  a  servant, 
and  learnt  that,  while  I  had  been  love-making  on  the  sands, 
a  message  had  come  from  the  Continent  with  news  of  my 
father's  death. 


VI. 

There  was  no  meeting  Winifred  on  the  next  night. 

It  was  decided  that  my  uncle's  private  secretary  should 
go  to  Switzerland  to  bring  the  body  to  England.  I  (re- 
membering my  promise  about  the  mementoes)  insisted  on 
accompanying  him.  We  started  on  the  morrow,  preceded 
by  a  message  to  my  father's  Swiss  friends  ordering  an  em- 
balmment. Before  starting  I  tried  to  see  Winifred;  but  she 
had  gone  to  Dullingham. 

On  our  arrival  at  the  little  Swiss  town,  we  found  that  the 
embalmment  had  been  begun.  The  body  was  still  in  the 
hands  of  a  famous  embalmer — an  Italian  Jew  settled  at 
Geneva,  the  only  successful  rival  there  of  Professor  Las- 
kowski.  He  was  celebrated  for  having  revived  the  old  He- 
braic method  of  embalmment  in  spices,  and  improving  it  by 


The  Moonlight  Cross  of  the  Gnostics      y^ 

the  aid  of  the  modern  discoveries  in  antiseptics  of  Las- 
kowski,  Signor  Franchina  of  Naples,  and  Dr.  Dupre  of 
Paris.  This  physician  told  me  that  by  his  process  the  body 
would,  without  the  peculiarly-sealed  coffin  used  by  the  Swiss 
embalmers,  last  "firm  and  white  as  Carrara  marble  for  a 
thousand  years." 

The  people  at  the  chalet  had  naturally  been  much  as- 
tonished to  find  upon  my  father's  breast  a  jewelled  cross 
lying.    As  soon  as  I  entered  the  house  they  handed  it  to  me. 

For  some  reason  or  another  this  amulet  and  the  curse 
had  haunted  my  imagination  as  much  as  if  I  believed  in 
amulets  and  curses,  though  my  reason  told  me  that  every- 
thing of  the  kind  was  sheer  nonsense.  I  could  not  sleep  for 
thinking  about  it,  and  in  the  night  I  rose  from  my  bed,  and, 
opening  the  window,  held  up  the  cross  in  the  moonlight. 
The  facets  caught  the  silvery  rays  and  focused  them.  The 
amulet  seemed  to  shudder  with  some  prophecy  of  woe.  It 
was  now  that,  for  the  first  time,  I  began  to  feel  the  signs  of 
that  great  struggle  between  reason  and  the  inherited  instinct 
of  superstition  which  afterwards  played  so  important  a  part 
in  my  life.  I  then  took  up  the  parchment  scroll,  and  opened 
it  and  re-read  the  curse.  The  great  letters  in  which  the  Eng- 
lish version  was  printed  seemed  to  me  larger  by  the  light 
of  the  moon  than  they  had  seemed  by  daylight. 

We  had  to  wait  for  some  time  in  Switzerland.  In  a  locked 
drawer  I  found  the  casket  and  a  copy  of  The  Veiled  Queen. 
I  read  much  in  the  book.  Every  word  I  found  there  was  in 
fiat  contradiction  to  my  own  mode  of  thought. 

Did  the  shock  of  this  dreadful  catastrophe  drive  Winifred 
from  my  mind?  No,  nothing  could  have  done  that.  My 
soul  seemed,  as  I  have  said,  to  be  new-born,  and  all  emo- 
tions, passions,  and  sentiments  that  were  not  connected  with 
her  seemed  to  be  shadowy  and  distant,  like  ante-natal 
dreams.  It  would  be  hypocrisy  not  to  confess  this  frankly, 
regardless  of  the  impression  against  me  it  may  make  on  the 
reader's  mind.  Yet  I  had  a  real  affection  for  my  father.  In 
spite  of  his  extraordinary  obliviousness  of  my  very  existence 
till  the  last  year  of  his  life,  I  was  strongly  attached  to  him, 
and  his  death  made  me  see  nothing  but  his  virtues;  yet  my 
soul  was  so  filled  with  my  passion  for  Winifred  as  to  have 
but  little  room  for  sorrow.  As  to  my  mother,  her  attach- 
ment to  my  father  knew  no  bounds,  and  her  grief  at  her  be- 
reavement knew  none. 


76  Aylwin 

A  day  or  two  before  the  funeral  my  uncle  Aylwin  of  Al- 
vanley  arrived,  and  his  presence  was  a  great  comfort  to  her. 
Owing-  to  my  father's  position  in  the  county  a  great  deal  of 
funereal  state  was  considered  necessary,  and  there  was  much 
hurry  and  bustle. 

My  uncle  having  known  Wynne  when  quite  a  young  man, 
before  intemperance  had  degraded  him,  took  an  interest  in 
him  still.  He  had  called  at  the  cottage  as  he  passed  along 
Wilderness  Road  towards  Raxton,  and  the  result  of  this  was 
that  the  organist  came  to  speak  to  him  at  our  house  upon 
some  matter  in  connection  with  the  funeral  service.  My 
mother  was  greatly  vexed  at  this.  Her  conduct  on  the  oc- 
casion alarmed  me.  Ever  since  Frank's  death  had  made  it 
evident  not  only  that  I  should  succeed  to  all  the  property  of 
my  uncle  Aylwin  of  Alvanley,  but  that  I  might  even  succeed 
to  something  greater,  to  the  earldom  which  was  the  glory 
and  pride  of  the  Aylwins,  my  mother  had  kept  a  jealous  and 
watchful  eye  upon  me,  being,  as  I  afterwards  learned,  not 
unmindful  of  the  early  child-loves  of  Winifred  and  myself; 
and  the  advent  to  Raxton  of  Winifred,  as  a  beautiful  tall 
girl,  had  aroused  her  fears  as  well  as  her  wrath. 

The  day  of  the  funeral  came,  and  the  question  of  the  cas- 
ket and  the  amulet  was  on  my  mind.  The  important  thing, 
of  course,  was  that  the  matter  should  be  kept  absolutely 
secret.  The  valuables  must  be  placed  in  secrecy  with  the 
embalmed  corpse  at  the  last  moment,  before  the  screwing 
down  of  the  coffin,  when  servants  and  undertakers  were  out 
of  sight  and  hearing. 

My  mother  knew  what  had  been  my  father's  instructions 
to  me,  and  was  desirous  that  they  should  be  fulfilled,  though 
she  scorned  the  superstition.  She  and  I  placed  the  casket 
and  the  scroll  bearing  the  written  curse  upon  it  beneath 
my  father's  head,  and  hung  the  chain  of  the  amulet  around 
his  neck,  so  that  the  cross  lay  with  the  jewels  uppermost 
upon  his  breast.  Then  the  undertakers  were  called  in  to 
screw  down  the  coffin  in  my  presence.  My  mother  after- 
wards called  me  to  her  room,  and  told  me  that  she  was  much 
troubled  about  the  cross.  The  amulet  being  of  great  value, 
my  uncle  Aylwin  of  Alvanley  had  tried  to  dissuade  her  from 
carrying  into  execution  what  he  called  "the  absurd  whim  of 
a  mystic";  but  my  mother  urged  my  promise,  and  there  had 
been  warm  words  between  them,  as  my  mother  told  me — 
adding,  however,  "and  the  worst  of  it  is,  that  scamp  Wynne, 


The  Moonlight  Cross  of  the  Gnostics      'jj 

whom  your  uncle  introduced  into  this  house  without  my 
knowledge  or  sanction,  was  passing  the  door  while  your 
uncle  was  talking,  and  if  he  did  not  hear  every  word  about 
the  jewelled  cross,  drink  must  have  stupefied  him  indeed. 
He  is  my  only  fear  in  connection  with  the  jewels."  Her  dis- 
like of  Wynne  had  made  her  forget  for  the  moment  the 
elTect  her  words  must  have  upon  me. 

"Mother,"  I  said,  "your  persistent  prejudice  and  injustice 
towards  this  man  astonish  me.  Wynne,  though  poor  and 
degraded  now,  is  a  gentleman  born,  and  is  no  more  likely  to 
violate  a  tomb  than  the  best  Aylwin  that  ever  lived." 

I  will  not  dwell  upon  the  scene  at  the  funeral.  I  saw  my 
father's  coffin  placed  in  the  crypt  that  spread  beneath  the 
deserted  church.  It  was  by  the  earnest  wish  of  my  father 
that  he  was  buried  in  a  church  already  deserted  because  the 
grip  of  the  resistless  sea  was  upon  it.  At  this  very  time  a 
large  slice  of  the  clifif  behind  the  church  was  pronounced 
dangerous,  and  I  perceived  that  new  rails  were  lying  on  the 
grass  ready  to  be  fixed  up,  further  inland  than  ever. 


VII. 

My  mother  retired  to  her  room  immediately  on  our  return 
to  the  house.  My  uncle  stayed  till  just  before  dinner,  and 
then  left.  I  seemed  to  be  alone  in  a  deserted  house,  so  still 
were  the  servants,  so  quiet  seemed  everything.  But  now 
what  was  this  sense  of  undefined  dread  that  came  upon  me 
and  would  not  let  me  rest?  Why  did  I  move  from  room  to 
room?  and  what  was  goading  me?  Something  was  stirring 
like  a  blind  creature  across  my  brain,  and  it  was  too  hideous 
to  confront.  Why  should  I  confront  it?  Why  scare  one's 
soul  and  lacerate  one's  heart  at  every  dark  fear  that  peeps 
through  the  door  of  imagination,  when  experience  teaches 
us  that  out  of  every  hundred  such  dark  fears  ninety-nine  are 
sure  to  turn  out  mere  magic-lantern  bogies? 

The  evening  wore  on,  and  yet  I  zvould  not  face  this  phan- 
tom fear,  though  it  refused  to  quit  me. 

The  servants  went  to  bed  quite  early  that  night,  and  when 
the  butler  came  to  ask  me  if  I  should  "want  anything  more," 
I  said  "only  a  candle,"  and  went  up  to  my  bedroom. 


78  Aylwin 

"I  will  turn  into  bed,"  I  said,  "and  sleep  over  it.  The 
idea  is  a  figment  of  an  over-wrought  brain.  Destiny  would 
never  play  any  man  a  trick  like  that  which  I  have  dared  to 
dream  of.  Among  human  calamities  it  would  be  at  once 
the  most  shocking  and  the  most  whimsical — this  imaginary 
woe  that  scares  me.  Destiny  is  merciless,  but  who  ever  heard 
of  Destiny  playing  mere  cruel  practical  jokes  upon  man  ?  Up 
to  now  the  Fates  have  never  set  up  as  humourists.  Now, 
for  a  man  to  love,  to  dote  upon,  a  girl  whose  father  is  the 
violator  of  his  own  father's  tomb — a  wretch  who  has  called 
down  upon  himself  the  most  terrible  curse  of  a  dead  man 
that  has  ever  been  uttered — that  would  be  a  fate  too  fantas- 
tically cruel  to  be  permitted  by  Heaven — by  any  governing 
power  whose  sanctions  were  not  those  of  a  whimsical 
cruelty." 

Yet  those  words  of  my  mother's  about  Wynne,  and  her 
suspicions  of  him,  were  flitting  about  the  air  of  the  room 
like  fiery-eyed  bats. 

The  air  of  the  room — ah!  it  was  stifling  me.  I  opened  the 
window  and  leant  out.  But  that  made  matters  a  thousand 
times  worse,  for  the  moon  was  now  at  the  very  full,  and 
staring  across — staring  at  what? — staring  across  the  sea  at 
the  tall  tower  of  the  old  church  on  the  clifif,  where  perhaps 
the  sin — the  "unpardonable  sin,"  according  to  Cymric  ideas 
— of  sacrilege — sacrilege  committed  by  her  father  upon  the 
grave  of  mine — might  at  this  moment  be  going  on.  The 
body  of  the  church  was  hidden  from  me  by  the  intervening 
trees,  and  nothing  but  the  tall  tower  shone  in  the  silver  light. 
So  intently  did  the  moon  stare  at  it,  that  it  seemed  to  me 
that  the  inside  of  the  church,  with  its  silent  aisles,  arches  . 
and  tombs,  was  reflected  on  her  disc.  The  moon  oppressed 
me,  and  when  I  turned  my  eyes  away  I  seemed  to  see  hang- 
ing in  the  air  the  silent  aisles  of  a  church,  through  whose 
windows  the  moonlight  was  pouring,  flooding  them  with  a 
radiance  more  ghastly  than  darkness,  concentrating  all  its 
light  on  the  chancel,  beneath  which  I  knew  that  my  father 
was  lying  in  the  dark  crypt  with  a  cross  on  his  breast.  I 
turned  for  relief  to  look  in  the  room,  and  there,  in  the  dark- 
ness made  by  the  shadow  of  the  bed,  I  seemed  to  read,  writ- 
ten in  pale,  trembling  flame,  the  words: 

"Let  there  be  no  man  to  pity  him,  nor  to  have  com- 
passion UPON  his  fatherless  children.     .    .     .     Let 


The  Moonlight  Cross  of  the  Gnostics     79 

HIS  CHILDREN  BE  VAGABONDS,  AND  BEG  THEIR  BREAD:  LET 
THEM  SEEK  IT  ALSO  OUT  OF  DESOLATE  PLACES." 

I  returned  to  the  window  for  relief  from  the  bedroom. 

"Now,  let  me  calmly  consider  the  case  in  all  its  bearings," 
I  said  to  myself,  drawing  a  chair  to  the  window  and  sitting 
down  with  my  elbows  resting  on  the  sill.  "Suppose  Wynne 
really  did  overhear  the  altercation  between  my  mother  and 
my  uncle,  which  seems  scarcely  probable,  has  drink  really 
so  demoralized  him,  so  brutalized  him,  that  for  drink  he 
would  commit  the  crime  of  sacrilege?  There  are  no  signs  of 
his  having  sunk  so  low  as  that.  But  suppose  the  crime  were 
committed,  what  then?  Do  I  really  believe  that  the  curse  of 
my  father  and  of  the  Psalmist  would  fall  upon  Winifred's 
pure  and  innocent  head?  Certainly  not.  I  do  not  believe 
in  the  efifect  of  curses  at  all.  I  do  not  believe  in  any  super- 
natural interference  with  the  natural  laws  of  the  universe." 

Ah!  but  this  thought  about  the  futility  of  the  curse,  about 
the  folly  of  my  father's  superstitions,  brought  me  no  com- 
fort. I  knew  that,  brave  as  Winifred  was  as  a  child,  she  was, 
when  confronting  the  material  world,  very  superstitious.  I 
remembered  that  as  a  child,  whenever  I  said,  "What  a  happy 
day  it  has  been!"  she  would  not  rest  until  she  had  made  me 
add,  "and  shall  have  many  more,"  because  of  her  feeling  of 
the  prophetic  power  of  words.  I  knew  that  the  superstitions 
of  the  Welsh  hills  awed  her.  I  knew  that  it  had  been  her  lot 
to  imbibe,  not  only  Celtic,  but  Romany  superstitions.  I 
knew  that  the  tribe  of  Gypsies  with  whom  she  had  been 
thrown  into  contact,  the  Lovells  and  the  Boswells,  though 
superior  to  the  rest  of  the  Romany  race,  are  the  most  super- 
stitious of  all,  and  that  Winifred  had  become  an  object  of 
strong  affection  to  the  most  superstitious  even  among  that 
tribe,  one  Sinfi  Lovell.  I  knew  from  something  that  had 
once  fallen  from  her  as  a  child  on  the  sands,  when  prattling 
about  Sinfi  Lovell  and  Rhona  Boswell,  that  especially  pow- 
erful with  her  was  the  idea  (both  Romany  and  Celtic)  about 
the  effect  of  a  dead  man's  curse.  I  knew  that  this  idea  had  a 
dreadful  fascination  for  her — the  fascination  of  repulsion.  I 
knew  also  that  reason  may  strive  with  superstition  as  with 
the  other  instincts,  but  it  will  strive  in  vain.  I  knew  that  it 
would  have  been  worse  than  idle  for  me  to  say  to  Winifred, 
"There  is  no  curse  in  the  matter.  The  dreaming  mystic 
who  begot  and  forgot  me,  what  curse  could  he  call  down  on 


8o  Aylwin 

a  soul  like  my  Winifred's  ?"  Her  reason  might  partly  accept 
my  arguments;  but  straightway  they  would  be  spurned  by  her 
instincts  and  her  traditional  habits  of  thought.  The  terrible 
voice  of  the  Psalmist  would  hush  every  other  sound.  Her 
sweet  soul  would  pine  under  the  blazing  fire  of  a  curse,  real 
or  imaginary;  her  life  would  be  henceforth  but  a  bitter  pen- 
ance. Like  the  girl  in  Coleridge's  poem  of  "The  Three 
Graves,"  her  very  flesh  would  waste  before  the  fires  of  her 
imagination. 

"No,"  said  I,  "such  a  calamity  as  this  which  I  dread 
Heaven  would  not  permit.  So  cruel  a  joke  as  this  Hell  itself 
would  not  have  the  heart  to  play." 


My  meditations  were  interrupted  by  a  sound,  and  then  by 
a  sensation  such  as  I  cannot  describe.  Whence  came  that 
shriek?  It  was  like  a  shriek  coming  from  a  distance — loud 
there,  faint  he^'e,  and  yet  it  seemed  to  come  from  me!  It  was 
as  though  /  were  witnessing  some  dreadful  sight  unutterable 
and  intolerable.  And  then  it  semed  the  voice  of  Winifred, 
and  then  it  seemed  her  father's  voice,  and  finally  it  seemed 
the  voice  of  my  own  father  struggling  in  his  tomb.  My 
horror  stopped  the  pulses  of  my  heart  for  a  moment,  and 
then  it  passed. 

"It  comes  from  the  church  or  from  behind  the  church," 
I  said,  as  the  shriek  was  followed  by  an  angry  murmur  as  of 
muffled  thunder.  All  had  occurred  within  the  space  of  half 
a  second.  I  quickly  but  cautiously  opened  my  bedroom 
door,  extinguishing  my  light  before  doing  so,  and  began  to 
creep  downstairs,  fearing  to  wake  my  mother.  My  shoes 
creaked,  so  I  took  them  off  and  carried  them.  Crossing 
the  hall,  I  softly  drew  the  bolts  of  the  front  door;  then  I 
passed  into  the  moonlight.  The  gravel  of  the  carriage-drive 
cut  through  my  stockings,  and  a  pebble  bruised  one  of  my 
heels  so  that  I  nearly  fell.  When  I  got  safely  under  the 
shadow  of  the  large  cedar  of  Lebanon  in  the  middle  of  the 
lawn,  I  stopped  and  looked  up  at  my  mother's  window  to 
see  if  she  were  a  watcher.  The  blinds  were  down,  there  was 
no  movement,  no  noise.  Evidently  she  was  asleep.  I  put  on 
my  shoes  and  hurried  across  the  lawn  towards  the  high  road. 
I  walked  at  a  sharp  pace  towards  the  old  church.  The  bark 
of  a  distant  dog  or  the  baa  of  a  waking  sheep  was  the  only 
sound.    When  I  reached  the  churchyard,  I  peered  in  dread 


The  Moonlight  Cross  of  the  Gnostics     8 1 

over  the  lich-gate  before  I  opened  it.  Neither  Wynne  nor 
any  living  creature  was  to  be  seen  in  the  churchyard. 

The  soothing  smell  of  the  sea  came  from  the  cliffs,  mak- 
ing me  wonder  at  my  fears.  On  the  loneliest  coast,  in  the 
dunnest  night,  a  sense  of  companionship  comes  with  the 
smell  of  seaweed.  At  my  feet  spread  the  great  churchyard, 
with  its  hundreds  of  little  green  hillocks  and  white  grave- 
stones, sprinkled  here  and  there  with  square,  box-like  tombs. 
All  quietly  asleep  in  the  moonlight !  Here  and  there  an 
aged  headstone  seemed  to  nod  to  its  neighbour,  as  though 
muttering  in  its  dreams.  The  old  church,  bathed  in  the  radi- 
ance, seemed  larger  than  it  had  ever  done  in  daylight,  and 
incomparably  more  grand  and  lonely. 

On  the  left  were  the  tall  poplar  trees,  rustling  and  whis- 
pering among  themselves.  Still,  there  might  be  at  the  back 
of  the  church  mischief  working.  I  walked  round  thither. 
The  ghostly  shadows  on  the  long  grass  might  have  been 
shadows  thrown  by  the  ruins  of  Tadmor,  so  quietly  did  they 
He  and  dream.  A  weight  was  uplifted  from  my  soul.  A 
balm  of  sweet  peace  fell  upon  my  heart.  The  noises  I  had 
heard  had  been  imaginary,  conjured  up  by  love  and  fear; 
or  they  might  have  been  an  echo  of  distant  thunder.  The 
windows  of  the  church  no  doubt  looked  ghastly,  as  I  peered 
in  to  see  whether  Wynne's  lantern  was  moving  about.  But 
all  was  still.  I  lingered  in  the  churchyard  close  by  the  spot 
where  I  had  first  seen  the  child  Winifred  and  heard  the 
Welsh  song. 

I  went  to  look  at  the  sea  from  the  cliff.  Here,  however, 
there  was  something  sensational  at  last.  The  spot  where 
years  ago  I  had  sat  when  Winifred's  song  had  struck  upon 
my  ear  and  awoke  me  to  a  new  life — was  gone!  "This  then 
was  the  noise  I  heard."  I  said;  "the  rumbling  was  the  fall- 
ing of  the  earth ;  the  shriek  was  the  tearing  down  of  trees." 

Another  slice,  a  slice  weighing  thousands  of  tons,  had 
slipped  since  the  afternoon  from  the  churchyard  on  to  the 
sands  below.  "Perhaps  the  tread  of  the  townspeople  who 
came  to  witness  the  funeral  may  have  given  the  last  shake 
to  the  soil,"  I  said. 

I  stood  and  looked  over  the  newly-made  gap  at  the  great 
hungry  water.  Considering  the  little  wind,  the  swell  on  the 
North  Sea  was  tremendous.  Far  away  there  had  been  a 
storm  somewhere.  The  moon  was  laying  a  band  of  living 
light  across  the  vast  bosom  of  the  sea,  like  a  girdle.    Only 


82  Avlwin 

a  month  had  elapsed  since  that  never-to-be-forgotten  moon- 
Hght  walk  with  Winifred.  But  what  a  world  of  emotion 
since  then! 


VIII. 

I  WALKED  along  the  clifif  to  the  gangway  behind  FUnty 
Point,  and  descended  in  order  to  see  what  havoc  the  land- 
slip had  made  with  the  graves. 

I  looked  across  the  same  moonlit  sands  where  I  had  seen 
Winifred  so  short  a  time  before,  when  I  had  a  father.  To 
my  delight  and  surprise,  there  she  was  again.  There  was 
Winifred,  walking  thoughtfully  towards  Church  Cove  with 
Snap  by  her  side,  who  seemed  equally  thoughtful  and  se- 
date. The  relief  of  finding  that  my  fears  about  her  father 
were  groundless  added  to  my  joy  at  seeing  her.  With  my 
own  dead  father  lying  within  a  few  roods  of  me  I  ran  towards 
her  in  a  state  of  high  exhilaration,  forgetting  everything  but 
her.  With  sympathetic  looks  for  my  bereavement  she  met 
me,  and  we  walked  hand-in-hand  in  silence. 

After  a  little  while  she  said:  "My  father  told  me  he  was 
very  busy  to-night,  and  wished  me  to  come  on  the  sands  for 
a  walk,  but  I  little  hoped  to  meet  you;  I  am  very  pleased 
we  have  met,  for  to-morrow  I  am  going  to  London." 

"To  London?"  I  said,  in  dismay  at  the  thought  of  losing 
her  so  soon.    "Why  are  you  going  to  London,  Winnie?" 

"Oh,"  said  she,  with  the  same  innocent  look  of  business- 
like importance  which,  at  our  first  meeting  as  children,  had 
so  impressed  me  when  she  pulled  out  the  key  to  open  the 
church-door,  "I'm  going  on  business." 

"On  business!  And  how  long  do  you  stay?" 

"I  don't  stay  at  all;  I'm  coming  back  immediately." 

"Come,"  I  exclaimed,  "there's  a  little  comfort  in  that,  at 
least.    Snap  and  I  can  wait  for  one  day." 

"Good-night,"  said  Winifred. 

"Have  you  not  seen  the  great  landslip  at  the  churchyard?" 
I  asked,  taking  her  hand  and  pointing  to  the  new  promon- 
tory which  the  debris  of  the  fall  had  made. 

"Another  landslip?"  said  she.  "Poor  dear  old  churchyard, 
it  will  soon  all  be  gone!  Snap  and  I  must  have  been  far 
away  when  that  fell.  But  I  remember  saying  to  him,  'Hark 
at  the  thunder,  Snap!'  and  then  I  heard  a  sound  like  a  shriek 


The  Moonlight  Cross  of  the  Gnostics     83 

that  appalled  me.  It  recalled  a  sound  I  once  heard  in  Shire- 
Carnarvon." 

"What  was  it,  Winnie?" 

"You've  heard  me  when  I  was  a  little  girl  talk  of  my 
Gypsy  sister  Sinfi?" 

"Often,"  I  said. 

"She  loves  me  more  than  anybody  else  in  the  whole 
world,"  said  Winifred  simply.  "She  says  she  would  lay 
down  her  life  for  me,  and  I  really  believe  she  would.  Well, 
there  is  not  far  from  where  I  used  to  live  a  famous  cascade 
called  the  Swallow  Falls,  where  the  water  drops  down  a 
chasm  of  great  depth.  If  you  listen  to  the  noise  of  the  cata- 
ract, you  may  hear  mingled  with  it  a  peculiar  kind  of  wail 
as  from  a  man  in  great  agony.  It  is  said  to  be  the  wail  of 
Sir  John  Wynn,  of  Gwydir,  whose  spirit  is  under  a  curse, 
and  is  imprisoned  at  the  bottom  of  the  falls  on  account  of 
his  cruelty  and  misdeeds  on  earth.  On  those  rare  nights 
when  the  full  moon  shines  down  the  chasm,  the  wail  be- 
comes an  agonized  shriek.  Once  on  a  bright  moonlight 
night  Sinfi  and  I  went  to  see  these  falls.  The  moonlight  on 
the  cascade  had  exactly  the  same  supernatural  appearance 
that  it  has  now  falling  upon  these  billows.  Sinfi  sings  some 
of  our  Welsh  songs,  and  accompanies  herself  on  a  peculiar 
obsolete  Welsh  instrument  called  a  crwth,  which  she  always 
carries  with  her.  While  we  were  listening  to  the  cataract 
and  what  she  called  the  Wynn  wail,  she  began  to  sing  the 
wild  old  air.  Then  at  once  the  wail  sprang  into  a  loud 
shriek;  Sinfi  said  the  shriek  of  a  cursed  spirit;  and  the  shriek 
was  exactly  like  the  sound  I  heard  from  the  cliffs  a  little 
while  ago." 

"I  heard  the  same  noise,  Winnie.  It  was  simply  the  rend- 
ing and  cracking  of  the  poor  churchyard  trees  as  they  fell." 

She  turned  back  with  me  to  the  water-mark  to  see  the 
waves  come  tumbling  in  beneath  the  moon.  We  sauntered 
along  the  sea-margin  again,  heedless  of  the  passage  of  time. 

And  again  (as  on  that  betrothal  night)  Winifred  prattled 
on,  while  I  listened  to  the  prattle,  craftily  throwing  in  a  word 
or  two,  now  and  then,  to  direct  the  course  of  the  sweet  music 
into  such  channels  as  best  pleased  my  lordly  whim, — when 
suddenly,  against  my  will  and  reason,  there  came  into  my 
mind  that  idea  of  the  sea's  prophecy  which  was  so  familiar  to 
my  childhood,  but  which  my  studies  had  now  made  me 
despise. 


84  Aylwin 

The  sea  then  threw  up  to  Winifred's  feet  a  piece  of  sea- 
weed. It  was  a  long  band  of  common  weed,  that  would  in  the 
sunlight  have  shone  a  bright  red.  And  at  that  very  moment 
— right  across  the  sparkling  bar  the  moon  had  laid  over  the 
sea — there  passed,  without  any  cloud  to  cast  it,  a  shadow. 
And  my  father's  description  of  his  love-tragedy  haunted  me, 
I  knew  not  why.  And  right  across  my  life,  dividing  it  in 
twain  like  a  burn-scar,  came  and  lay  forever  that  strip  of  red 
seaweed.  Why  did  my  father's  description  of  his  own  love- 
tragedy  haunt  me? 

Before  recalling  the  words  that  had  fallen  from  my  father 
in  Switzerland,  I  was  a  boy:  in  a  few  minutes  afterwards, 
I  was  a  man  with  an  awful  knowledge  of  destiny  in  my  eyes 
— a  man  struggling  with  calamity,  and  fainting  in  the  grip 
of  dread.  My  manhood,  I  say,  dates  from  the  throwing  up 
of  that  strip  of  seaweed.  Winifred  picked  up  the  weed  and 
made  a  necklace  of  it,  in  the  old  childish  way,  knowing  how 
much  it  would  please  me. 

"Isn't  it  a  lovely  colour?"  she  said,  as  it  glistened  in  the 
moonlight.  "Isn't  it  just  as  beautiful  and  just  as  precious 
as  if  it  were  really  made  of  the  jewels  it  seems  to  rival?" 

"It  is  as  red  as  the  reddest  ruby,"  I  replied,  putting  out 
my  hand  and  grasping  the  slippery  substance. 

"Would  you  believe,"  said  Winnie,  "that  I  never  saw  a 
ruby  in  my  life?  And  now  I  particularly  want  to  know  all 
about  rubies." 

"Why  do  you  want  particularly  to  know?" 

"Because,"  said  Winifred,  "my  father,  when  he  wished  me 
to  come  out  for  a  walk,  had  been  talking  a  great  deal  about 
rubies." 

"Your  father  had  been  talking  about  rubies,  Winifred — 
how  very  odd!" 

"Yes,"  said  Winifred,  "and  he  talked  about  diamonds 
too." 

"The  Curse!"  I  murmured,  and  clasped  her  to  my  breast. 
"Kiss  me,  Winifred!" 

There  had  come  a  bite  of  sudden  fire  at  my  heart,  and  I 
shuddered  with  a  dreadful  knowledge,  like  the  captain  of  an 
unarmed  ship,  who,  while  the  unconscious  landsmen  on 
board  are  gaily  scrutini;^ing  a  sail  that  like  a  speck  has  ap- 
peared on  the  horizon,  shudders  with  the  knowledge  of  what 
the  speck  ts,  and  hears  in  imagination  the  yells,  and  sees  the 
knives,  of  the  Lascar  pirates  just  starting  in  pursuit.    As  I 


The  Moonlight  Cross  of  the  Gnostics      85 

took  in  the  import  of  those  innocent  words,  falling  from 
Winifred's  bright  lips,  falling  as  unconsciously  as  water- 
drops  over  a  coral  reef  in  tropical  seas  alive  with  the  eyes  of 
a  thousand  sharks,  my  skin  seemed  to  roughen  with  dread, 
and  my  hair  began  to  stir. 

At  first  she  resisted  my  movement,  but  looking  in  my 
eyes  and  seeing  that  something  had  deeply  disturbed  me, 
she  let  me  kiss  her. 

"What  did  you  say,  Henry?" 

"That  I  love  you  so,  Winnie,  and  cannot  let  vou  go  just 
yet." 

"What  a  dear  fellow  it  is!"  she  said;  "and  all  this  ado 
about  a  poor  girl  with  scarcely  shoes  to  her  feet."  Then, 
after  an  instant's  pause,  she  said:  "But  I  thought  you  said 
something  very  different.  I  thought  you  said  something 
about  a  curse,  and  that  scared  me." 

"Scared  Winifred!"  I  said.  "Fancy  anything  scaring 
Winnie,  who  threatens  to  hit  people  when  they  ofTend  her." 

"Ah!  but  I  am  scared,"  said  she,  "at  things  from  the  other 
world,  and  especially  at  a  curse." 

"Why,  what  do  you  know  about  curses,  Winifred?" 

"Oh,  a  good  deal.  I  have  never  forgotten  that  shriek  of 
a  cursed  spirit  which  I  heard  at  the  Swallow  Falls.  And 
only  a  short  time  ago  Sinfi  Lovell  nearly  frightened  me  to 
death  by  a  story  of  a  whole  Gypsy  tribe  having  withered, 
one  after  the  other — grandfathers,  fathers,  and  children — 
through  a  dead  man's  curse.  But  what  is  the  matter  with 
you,  Henry?    You  surely  have  turned  very  pale." 

"Well,  Winnie,"  said  I,  "I  am  a  little,  just  a  little  faint. 
After  the  funeral  I  could  take  no  dinner.  But  it  will  be  over 
in  a  minute.  Let  us  go  back  a  few  yards  and  sit  down  upon 
the  dry  sand,  and  have  a  little  more  chat." 

We  went  and  sat  down,  and  my  heart  slowly  resumed  its 
function. 

"Let  me  see,  Winnie,  what  we  were  talking  about?  About 
rubies  and  diamonds,  I  think,  were  we  not?  You  said  that 
when  your  father  bade  you  come  out  for  a  walk  to-night, 
he  had  just  been  talking  about  rubies  and  diamonds.  What 
was  he  saying  about  them,  Winnie?  But  come  and  lay 
your  head  here  while  you  tell  me ;  lay  it  on  my  breast,  Win- 
nie, as  you  used  to  do  in  Graylingham  Wood,  and  on  these 
same  sands." 

Evidently  the  earnestness  of  my  manner  and  the  sup- 


86  Ay  1  win 

pressed  passion  in  my  voice  drove  out  of  her  mind  all  her 
wise  saws  about  the  perils  of  wealth  and  all  her  wise  deter- 
minations about  the  proposed  betrothal,  for  she  came  and 
sat  by  my  side  and  laid  her  head  upon  my  breast. 

"Yes,  like  that,"  I  said;  "and  now  tell  me  what  your  father 
was  saying  about  precious  stones;  for  I,  too,  take  an  interest 
in  jewels,  and  have  a  great  knowledge  of  them." 

"My  father,"  said  Winifred,  "is  going  to  have  some  dia- 
monds and  rubies  given  to  him  to-night  by  a  friend  of  his, 
a  sailor,  who  has  come  from  India,  and  I  am  to  go  to  Lon- 
don to-morrow  to  sell  some  of  them;  for  you  know,  dear, 
we  are  very  poor.  That  is  why  I  am  determined  to  go  back 
to  Shire-Carnarv^on  and  see  if  I  can  get  a  situation  as  a  gov- 
erness. Miss  Dalrymple's  recommendation  will  be  of  grear 
aid.  Poverty  afflicts  father  more  than  it  afflicts  most  people, 
and  the  rubies  and  diamonds  and  things  will  be  of  no  use  to 
us,  you  know." 

I  could  make  her  no  answer. 

"It  seems  a  very  strange  kind  of  present  from  my  father's 
friend,"  she  continued,  meditatively;  "but  it  is  a  very  kind 
one  for  all  that.  But,  Henry,  you  surely  are  still  very  un- 
well ;  your  heart  is  thumping  underneath  my  ear  like  a  fire- 
engine." 

"They  are  all  love-thumps  for  Winifred,"  I  said,  with  pre- 
tended jocosity;  "they  are  all  love-thumps  for  my  Winnie." 

"But  of  course,"  said  she,  "this  is  quite  a  secret  about  the 
precious  stones.  My  father  enjoined  me  to  tell  no  one,  be- 
cause the  temptation  to  people  is  so  great,  and  the  cottage 
might  be  robbed,  or  I  might  be  waylaid  going  to  London. 
But  of  course  I  may  tell  you;  he  never  thought  of  you." 

"No,  Winnie,  he  never  thought  of  me.  You  are  very  fond 
of  him;  very  fond  of  your  father,  are  you  not?" 

"Oh,  yes,"  said  she,  "I  love  him  more  than  all  the  world 
— next  to  you." 

"Then  he  is  kind  to  you,  Winnie?" 

"Ye — yes,  as  kind  as  he  can  be — considering " 

"Considering  what,  Winnie?" 

"Considering  that  he's  often — unwell,  you  know." 

"Winnie,"  1  said,  as  I  gazed  in  the  innocent  eyes,  "whom 
are  you  considered  to  be  the  most  like,  your  father  or  your 
mother?" 

"I  never  knew  my  mother,  but  I  am  said  to  be  partly  like 
her.    Why  do  you  ask?" 


The  Moonlight  Cross  of  the  Gnostics     87 

"Only  an  idle  question.    You  love  me,  Winnie?" 

"What  a  question!" 

"And  you  will  do  what  I  ask  you  to  do,  if  I  ask  you  very 
earnestly,  Winnie?" 

"Certumly,"  said  Winifred,  giving,  with  a  forced  laugh, 
the  lisp  with  which  that  word  had  been  given  on  a  now 
famous  occasion. 

"Well,  Winifred,  I  told  you  that  I  feel  an  interest  in  pre- 
cious stones,  and  have  some  knowledge  of  them.  There  are 
certain  stones  to  which  I  have  the  greatest  antipathy;  dia- 
monds and  rubies  are  the  chief  of  these.  Now  I  want  you 
to  promise  that  diamonds  and  rubies  and  beryls  shall  never 
touch  these  fingers,  these  dear  fingers,  Winnie,  which  are 
mine,  you  know ;  they  are  mine  now,"  and  I  drew  the  smooth 
nails  slowly  along  my  lips.    "You  are  mine  now,  every  bit." 

"Every  bit,"  said  Winifred,  but  she  looked  perplexed. 

She  saw,  however,  by  my  face  that,  for  some  reason  or 
other,  I  was  deeply  in  earnest.  She  gave  the  promise.  And 
I  knew  at  least  that  those  fingers  would  not  be  polluted, 
come  what  would.  As  to  her  going  to  London  with  the 
spoil,  I  knew  how  to  prevent  that. 

But  what  course  of  action  was  I  now  to  take?  At  this  very 
moment  perhaps  Winifred's  father  was  violating  my  father's 
tomb,  unless  indeed  the  crime  might  even  yet  be  prevented. 
There  was  one  hope,  however.  The  drunken  scoundrel 
whose  daughter  was  my  world,  I  knew  to  be  a  procrasti- 
nator  in  everything.  His  crime  might,  even  yet.  be  only  a 
crime  in  intent ;  and,  if  so,  I  could  prevent  it  easily  enough. 
My  first  business  was  to  hurry  to  the  church,  and,  if  not  yet 
too  late,  keep  guard  over  the  tomb.  But  to  achieve  this 
I  must  get  quit  of  Winifred  without  a  moment's  delay.  Now 
Winifred's  most  direct  path  to  the  cottage  was  the  path  I 
myself  must  take  to  the  church,  the  gangway  behind  Flinty 
Point.  Yet  she  must  not  pass  the  church  with  me,  lest  an 
encounter  with  her  father  should  take  place.  There  was  but 
one  course  open.  I  must  induce  her  to  take  the  gangway 
behind  the  other  point  of  the  cove ;  and  how  was  this  to 
be  compassed?  That  was  what  I  was  racking  my  brain 
about. 

"Winifred."  I  said  at  last,  as  we  sat  and  looked  at  the  sea, 
"I  begin  to  fear  we  must  be  moving." 

She  started  up,  vexed  that  the  hint  to  move  had  come 
from  me. 


88  Aylwin 

"The  fact  is,"  I  said,  "I  particularly  want  to  go  into  the 
old  church," 

"Into  the  old  church  to-night?"  said  Winifred,  with  a  look 
of  astonishment  and  alarm  that  I  could  not  understand. 

"Yes;  something  was  left  undone  there  this  afternoon  at 
the  funeral,  and  I  must  go  at  once.  But  why  do  you  look 
so  alarmed?" 

"Oh,  don't  go  into  the  old  church  to-night,"  said  Wini- 
fred. 

I  stood  and  looked  at  her,  puzzled  and  strangely  dis- 
turbed. 

"Henry,"  said  she,  "I  know  you  will  think  me  very  foolish, 
but  I  have  not  yet  got  over  the  fright  that  shriek  gave  me, 
the  shriek  we  both  heard  the  moment  before  the  landslip. 
That  shriek  was  not  a  noise  made  by  the  rending  of  trees, 
Henry.    No,  no;  we  both  knozv  better  than  that,  Henry." 

I  gave  a  start;  for,  try  as  I  would,  I  had  not  really  suc- 
ceeded in  persuading  myself  that  what  I  had  heard  was  any- 
thing but  a  human  voice  in  terror  or  in  pain. 

"What  do  you  think  the  noise  was,  then?"  said  I. 

"I  don't  know;  but  I  know  what  I  felt  as  it  came  shud- 
dering along  the  sand,  and  then  went  wailing  over  the  sea." 

"What  did  you  feel,  Winnie?" 

"My  heart  stood  still,  for  it  seemed  to  me  to  be  the  call 
from  the  grave." 

"The  call  from  the  grave!  and  pray  what  is  that?  I  feel 
how  sadly  my  education  has  been  neglected." 

"Don't  scoff,  Henry.  It  is  said  that  when  the  fate  of  an 
old  family  is  at  stake,  there  will  sometimes  come  to  him 
who  represents  it  a  call  from  the  grave,  and  when  I  saw  Snap 
standing  stock  still,  his  hair  bristling  with  terror,  I  knew 
that  it  was  no  earthly  shriek.  I  felt  sure  it  was  the  call  from 
the  grave,  and  I  knelt  on  the  sands  and  prayed.  Henry, 
Henry,  don't  go  in  the  church  to-night." 

That  Winifred's  words  affected  me  profoimdly  I  need  not 
say.  The  shriek,  whatever  it  was,  had  been  responded  to  by 
her  soul  and  by  mine  in  the  same  mysterious  way.  But  the 
important  thing  to  do  was  to  prevent  her  from  imagining 
that  her  superstitious  terrors  had  affected  me. 

"Really,  Winnie,"  I  said,  "this  double-voiced  shriek  of 
yours,  which  is  at  once  the  shriek  of  the  Welshman  at  the 
bottom  of  the  swollen  falls  and  the  Celtic  call  from  the 
grave,  is  the  most  dramatic  shriek  I  ever  heard  of.  It  would 


The  Moonlight  Cross  of  the  Gnostics      89 

make  its  fortune  on  the  stage.  But  with  all  its  power  of 
being  the  shriek  of  two  different  people  at  once,  it  must  not 
prevent  my  going  into  the  church  to  do  my  duty ;  so  we 
had  better  part  here  at  this  very  spot.  You  go  up  the  cliffs 
by  Needle  Point,  and  /  will  take  Flinty  Point  gangway." 

"But  why  not  ascend  the  clififs  together?"  said  Winifred. 

"Why,  the  prying  coastguard  might  be  passing,  and  might 
wonder  to  see  us  in  the  churchyard  on  the  night  of  my 
father's  funeral  (he  might  take  us  for  two  ghosts  in  love,  you 
know).  However,  we  need  not  part  just  yet.  We  can  walk 
on  a  little  further  into  the  cove  before  our  paths  diverge." 

Winifred  made  no  demur,  though  she  looked  puzzled,  as 
we  were  then  much  nearer  to  the  gangway  I  had  selected 
for  myself  than  to  the  gangway  I  had  allotted  to  her. 


IX. 

Winifred  and  I  were  in  the  little  horseshoe  curve  called 
"Church  Cove,"  but  also  called  sometimes  "Mousetrap 
Cove,"  because,  as  I  have  already  mentioned,  a  person  im- 
prisoned in  it  by  the  tide  could  only  escape  by  means  of  a 
boat  from  the  sea. 

Needle  Point  was  at  one  extremity  of  the  cove  and  Flinty 
Point  at  the  other.  In  front  of  us,  therefore,  at  the  very 
centre  of  the  cliff  that  surrounded  the  cove,  was  the  old 
churcli,  which  I  was  to  reach  as  soon  as  possible.  To  reach 
a  gangway  up  the  cliff  it  was  necessary  to  pass  quite  out  of 
the  cove,  round  either  Flinty  Point  or  Needle  Point ;  for  the 
cliff  zvithin  the  cove  was  perpendicular,  and  in  some  parts 
actually  overhanging. 

When  we  reached  the  softer  sands  near  the  back  of  the 
cove,  where  the  walking  was  difficult,  I  bade  Winifred  good 
night,  and  she  turned  somewhat  demurely  to  the  left  on  her 
way  to  Needle  Point,  between  which  and  the  spot  where  we 
now  parted  she  would  have  to  pass  below  the  church  on  the 
cliff,  and  close  by  the  great  masses  of  debris  from  the  new 
landslip  that  had  fallen  from  the  churchyard.  This  land- 
slip (which  had  taken  place  since  she  had  left  home  for  her 
moonlight  walk)  had  changed  the  shape  of  the  cove  into  a 
figure  somewhat  like  the  Greek  f. 


90  Aylwin 

I  walked  rapidly  towards  Flinty  Point,  which  I  should 
have  to  double  before  I  could  reach  the  gangway  I  was  to 
take.  So  feverishly  possessed  had  I  become  by  the  desire  to 
prevent  the  sacrilege,  if  possible,  that  I  had  walked  some 
distance  away  from  Winifred  before  I  observed  how  high 
the  returning  tide  had  risen  in  the  cove. 

When  I  now  looked  at  Flinty  Point,  round  which  I 
was  to  turn,  I  saw  that  it  was  already  in  deep  water, 
and  that  I  could  not  reach  the  gangway  outside  the 
cove.  It  was  necessary,  therefore,  to  turn  back  and 
ascend  by  the  gangway  Winifred  was  making  for,  be- 
hind Needle  Point,  which  did  not  project  so  far  into 
the  sea.  So  I  turned  back.  As  I  did  so,  I  perceived 
that  she  had  reached  the  projecting  mass  of  debris  in  the 
middle  of  the  semicircle  below  the  churchyard,  and  was 
looking  at  it.  Then  I  saw  her  stoop,  pick  up  what  seemed 
a  paper  parcel,  open  it,  and  hold  it  near  her  face  to  trace 
out  the  letters  by  the  moonlight  Then  I  saw  her  give  a 
start  as  she  read  it.  I  walked  towards  her,  and  soon  reached 
the  landslip.  Evidently  what  she  read  agitated  her  much. 
She  seemed  to  read  it  and  re-read  it.  When  she  saw  me  she 
put  it  behind  her  back,  trying  to  conceal  it  from  me, 

"What  have  you  picked  up,  Winifred?"'  I  said,  in  much 
alarm ;  for  my  heart  told  me  that  it  was  in  some  way  con- 
nected with  her  father  and  the  shriek. 

"Oh,  Henry !"  said  she,  'T  was  in  hopes  you  had  not 
seen  it.  I  am  so  grieved  for  you.  This  parchment  contains 
a  curse  written  in  large  letters.  Some  sacrilegious  wretch 
has  broken  into  the  church  and  stolen  a  cross  placed  in  your 
father's  tomb." 

God! — It  was  the  very  same  parchment  scroll  from  my 
father's  tomb  on  which  was  written  the  curse !  I  was  struck 
dumb  with  astonishment  and  dismay.  The  whole  terrible 
truth  of  the  situation  broke  in  upon  me  at  one  flash.  The 
mysterious  shriek  was  explained  now.  Wynne  had  evi- 
dently broken  upon  the  tomb  as  soon  as  his  daughter  was 
out  of  the  way.  He  had  then,  in  order  to  reach  the  cottage 
without  running  the  risk  of  being  seen  by  a  chance  pas- 
senger on  the  Wilderness  Road,  blundered  about  the  edge 
of  the  cliff  at  the  very  moment  when  it  was  giving  way,  and 
had  fallen  with  it.  It  was  his  yell  of  despair  amid  the  noise 
of  the  landslip  that  Winifred  and  I  had  both  heard.  My  sole 
thought  was  for  Winifred.     She  had  read  the  curse;  but 


The  Moonlight  Cross  of  the  Gnostics     9 1 

where  was  the  dead  body  of  her  father  that  would  proclaim 
upon  whose  head  the  curse  had  fallen?  I  stared  around  me 
in  dismay.  She  saw  how  deeply  I  was  disturbed,  but  little 
dreamed  the  true  cause. 

"Oh,  Henry,"  said  she,  "to  think  that  you  should  have 
such  a  grief  as  this ;  your  dear  father's  tomb  violated !"  and 
she  sat  down  and  sobbed.  "But  there  is  a  God  in  heaven," 
she  added,  rising  with  great  solemnity.  "Whoever  has  com- 
mitted this  dreadful  crime  against  God  and  man  wih  rue 
the  day  he  was  born : — the  curse  of  a  dead  man  who  has 
been  really  wronged  no  penance  or  prayer  can  cure, — 
so  my  aunt  in  Wales  used  to  say,  and  so  Sinh  says; — it  clings 
to  the  wrongdoer  and  to  his  children.  That  cry  I  heard 
was  the  voice  of  vengeance,  and  it  came  from  your  father's 
tomb.'; 

"It  is  a  most  infamous  robbery,"  I  said;  "but  as  to  the 
curse,  that  is  of  course  as  powerless  to  work  mischief  as  the 
breath  of  a  baby."  And  again  I  anxiously  looked  around  to 
see  where  was  the  dead  body  of  Wynne,  which  I  knew  must 
be  close  by. 

"Oh,  Henry!"  said  she,  "listen  to  these  words,  these  awful 
words  of  your  dead  father,  and  the  words  of  the  Bible  too." 

And  she  held  up  to  her  eyes,  as  though  fascinated  by  it, 
the  parchment  scroll,  and  read  aloud  in  a  voice  so  awe- 
struck that  it  did  not  seem  to  be  her  voice  at  all: 

"He  zvho  shall  violate  this  tomb, — he  who  shall  steal  this 
amulet,  hallozved  as  a  love-token  between  me  and  my  dead  wife, 
— he  who  shall  dare  to  lay  a  sacrilegious  hand  upon  this  cross, 
stands  cursed  by  God,  cursed  by  love,  and  cursed  by  me,  Philip 
Aylwin,  lying  here.  'Let  there  be  no  man  to  pity  him,  nor  to 
have  compassion  upon  his  fatherless  children.  .  .  .  Let  his 
children  be  vagabonds,  and  beg  their  bread:  let  them  seek  it  also 
out  of  desolate  places.' — Psalm  cix.  So  saith  the  Lord.  Amen." 

"I  am  in  the  toils,"  I  murmured,  with  grinding  teeth. 

"What  a  frightful  curse  !"  she  said,  shuddering.  "It  terri- 
fies me  to  think  of  it.  How  hard  it  seems,"  she  continued, 
"that  the  children  should  be  cursed  for  the  father's  crimes." 

"But,  Winifred,  they  are  not  so  cursed,"  I  cried  "It  is 
all  a  hideous  superstition:  one  of  Man's  idiotic  lies!" 

"Henry,"  said  she,  shocked  at  my  irreverence,  "it  is  so; 
the  Bible  says  it,  and  all  life  shows  it.    Ah !  I  wonder  what 


92  Aylwin 

wretch  committed  the  sacrilege,  and  why  he  had  no  pity 
on  his  poor  innocent  children!" 

While  she  was  talking,  1  stooped  and  picked  up  the  casket 
from  which  the  letters  had  been  forced  by  the  fall.  She  had 
not  seen  it.    I  put  it  in  my  pocket. 

"Henry,  I  am  so  grieved  for  you,"  said  Winifred  again, 
and  she  came  and  wound  her  fingers  in  mine. 

Grieved  for  me!  But  where  was  her  father's  dead  body? 
That  was  the  thought  that  appalled  me.  Should  we  come 
upon  it  in  the  debris f  What  was  to  be  done?  Owing  to  the 
tide,  there  was  no  turning  back  now  to  Flinty  Point.  The 
projecting  debris  must  be  passed.  There  was  no  dallying 
for  a  moment.  If  we  lingered  we  should  be  caught  by  the 
tide  in  Mousetrap  Cove,  and  then  nothing  could  save  us. 
Suppose  in  passing  the  debris  we  should  come  upon  her 
father's  corpse!  The  idea  was  insupportable.  "Thank  God, 
however,"  I  murmured,  "she  will  not  even  then  know  the 
very  worst;  she  will  see  the  corpse  of  her  father  who  has 
fallen  with  the  cliff,  but  she  need  not  and  will  not  associate 
him  with  the  sacrilege  and  the  curse." 

As  I  picked  up  the  letters  that  had  been  scattered  from 
the  casket,  she  said : 

"I  cannot  get  that  dreadful  curse  out  of  my  head;  to 
think  that  the  children  of  the  despoiler  should  be  cursed  by 
God,  and  cursed  by  your  father,  and  yet  they  are  as  inno- 
cent as  I  am." 

"Best  to  forget  it,"  said  I,  standing  still,  for  I  dared  not 
move  toward  the  debris. 

"We  must  get  on,  Henry,"  said  she,  "for  look,  the  tide  is 
unusually  high  to-night.  You  have  turned  back,  1  see,  be- 
cause Flinty  Point  is  already  deep  in  the  w-ater." 

"Yes,"  I  said,  "I  must  turn  Needle  Point  with  you.  But 
as  to  the  sacrilege,  let  us  dismiss  it  from  our  minds ;  what 
cannot  be  helped  had  better  be  forgotten." 

I  then  cautiously  turned  the  corner  of  the  debris,  leading 
her  after  me  in  such  a  way  that  my  body  acted  as  a  screen. 
Then  my  eyes  encountered  a  spectacle  whose  horror  chilled 
my  blood,  and  haunts  me  to  this  day  in  my  dreams.  About 
twelve  feet  above  the  general  level  of  the  sand,  buried  to 
the  breast  behind  a  mass  of  greensward  fallen  from  the 
graveyard,  stood  the  dead  body  of  Wynne,  amid  a  confused 
heap  of  earth,  gravestones,  trees,  shrubs,  bones,  and  shat- 
tered coffins.     Bolt  upright  it  stood,  staring  with  horribly 


The  Moonlight  Cross  of  the  Gnostics     93 

distorted  features^  as  in  terror,  the  crown  of  the  head 
smashed  by  a  fallen  gravestone.  Upon  his  breast  glittered 
the  rubies  and  diamonds  and  beryls  of  the  cross,  sparkling 
in  the  light  of  the  moon,  and  seeming  to  be  endowed  with 
conscious  life.  It  was  evident  that  he  had,  while  groping 
his  way  out  of  the  crypt,  slung  the  cross  round  his  neck,  in 
order  to  free  his  hands.  I  shudder  as  I  recall  the  spectacle. 
The  sight  would  have  struck  Winifred  dead,  or  sent  her 
raving  mad,  on  the  spot;  but  she  had  not  turned  the  corner, 
and  I  had  just  time  to  wheel  sharply  round,  and  thrust  my 
body  between  her  and  the  spectacle.  The  dog  saw  it,  and, 
foaming  with  terror,  pointed  at  it. 

"I  beg  your  pardon,  Winifred,"  I  said,  falling  upon  her 
and  pushing  her  back. 

Then  I  stood  paralysed  as  the  full  sinister  meaning  of  the 
situation  broke  in  upon  my  mind.  Had  the  debris  fallen  in 
any  other  way  I  might  have  saved  Winifred  from  seeing  the 
most  cruel  feature  of  the  hideous  spectacle,  the  cross,  the 
evidence  of  her  father's  sacrilege.  I  might,  perhaps,  on 
some  pretence,  have  left  her  on  this  side  of  the  debris,  and 
turning  the  corner,  have  mounted  the  heap  and  removed 
the  cross  gleaming  in  hideous  mockery  on  the  dead  man's 
breast,  and  giving  back  the  moonbeams  in  a  cross  of  angry 
fire.  One  glance,  however,  had  shown  me  that  before  this 
could  be  done  there  was  a  wall  of  slippery  sward  to  climb, 
for  the  largest  portion  of  the  churchyard  soil  had  broken  off 
in  one  lump.  In  falling  it  had  turned  but  half  over,  and  then 
had  slid  down  sideways,  presenting  to  the  climber  a  facet  of 
sward  nearly  perpendicular  and  a  dozen  feet  high.  Wedged 
in  between  the  jaggy  top  of  this  block  and  the  wall  of  the 
cliff  was  the  corpse,  showing  that  Wynne  had  been  standing 
by  the  fissure  of  the  cliff  at  the  moment  when  it  widened 
into  a  landslip. 

Nor  was  that  all ;  between  that  part  of  the  debris  where 
the  corpse  was  perched  and  the  sand  below  was  one  of  those 
long  pools  of  sea-water  edged  by  shingles,  which  are  com- 
mon features  of  that  coast.  It  seemed  that  Destiny  or  Cir- 
cumstance, more  pitiless  than  Fate  and  Hell,  determined 
on  our  ruin,  had  forgotten  nothing. 

The  contour  of  the  cove ;  the  way  in  which  the  debris  had 
been  thrown  across  the  path  we  now  must  follow  in  order  to 
reach  the  only  place  of  egress  ;  the  way  in  which  the  hideous 
spectacle  of  Wynne  and  the  proof  of  his  guilt  had  been 


94  Aylwin 

placed,  so  that  to  pass  it  without  seeing  it  the  passenger 
must  go  bhndfold ;  the  brilliance  of  the  moon,  intensified  by 
being  reflected  from  the  sea;  the  fulness  of  the  high  tide, 
and  the  swell, — all  was  complete !  As  I  stood  there  with 
clenched  teeth,  like  a  rat  in  a  trap,  a  wind  seemed  to  come 
blowing  through  my  soul,  freezing  and  burning.  I  cursed 
Superstition  that  was  slaying  us  both.  And  I  should  have 
cursed  Heaven  but  for  the  touch  of  Winnie's  clasping  fin- 
gers, silky  and  soft  as  when  I  first  felt  them  as  a  child  in  the 
churchyard. 

"What  has  happened?"  asked  she,  looking  into  my  face. 

"Only  a  slip  of  my  foot,"  I  said,  recovering  my  presence 
of  mind. 

"But  why  do  you  turn  back?" 

"I  cannot  bring  myself  to  part  from  you  under  this  deli- 
cious moon,  Winnie,  if  you  will  stay  a  few  minutes  longer. 
Let  us  go  and  sit  on  that  very  boulder  where  little  Hal 
proposed  to  you." 

"But  you  want  to  go  into  the  church,"  said  Winifred,  as 
we  moved  back  towards  the  boulder. 

"No,  I  will  leave  that  till  the  morning.  I  would  leave 
anything  till  the  morning,  to  have  a  few  minutes  longer  with 
you  on  the  sands.  Try  to  imagine  that  we  are  children  again, 
and  that  I  am  not  the  despised  rich  man,  but  little  Hal  the 
cripple." 

Winifred's  eyes,  which  had  begun  to  look  very  troubled, 
sparkled  with  delight. 

"But,"  said  she  with  a  sigh,  as  we  sat  down  on  the  boul- 
der, "I'm  afraid  we  sha'n't  be  able  to  stay  long.  See  how 
the  tide  is  rising,  and  the  sea  is  wild.  The  tides  just  now. 
father  says,  come  right  up  to  the  clifif  in  the  cove,  and  once 
locked  in  between  Flinty  Point  and  Needle  Point  there  is 
no  escape," 

"Yes,  darling,"  I  muttered  to  myself,  drawing  her  to  me 
and  burying  my  face  in  her  bosom,  "there  is  one  escape,  only 
one." 

For  death  seemed  to  me  the  only  escape  from  a  tragedy 
far,  far  worse  than  death. 

If  she  made  me  any  answer  I  heard  it  not;  for,  as  I  sat 
there  with  closed  eyes,  schemes  of  escape  fluttered  before 
me  and  were  dismissed  at  the  rate  of  a  thousand  a  second. 
A  fiery  photograph  of  the  cove  was  burning  within  my 
brain,  my  mind  was  absorbed  in  examining  every  cranny 


The  Moonlight  Cross  of  the  Gnostics     95 

and  every  protuberance  in  the  semicircular  wall  of  the  cliff 
there  depicted;  over  and  over  again  I  was  examining  that 
brain  picture,  though  I  knew  every  inch  of  it,  and  knew 
there  was  not  in  the  cliff-wall  foothold  for  a  squirrel. 


X.  ' 

The  moon  mocked  me,  and  seemed  to  say: 

"The  blasting  spectacle  shining  there  on  the  other  side  of 
that  heap  of  earth  must  be  passed,  or  Needle  Point  can 
never  be  reached;  and  unless  it  is  reached  instantly  you 
and  she  can  never  leave  the  cove." 

"Then  we  will  never  leave  it,"  I  whispered  to  myself, 
jumping  up. 

As  I  did  so  I  found  for  the  first  time  that  her  forehead 
had  been  resting  against  my  head;  for  the  furious  rate  at 
which  the  wheels  of  thought  were  moving  left  no  vital  cur- 
rent for  the  sense  of  touch,  and  my  flesh  was  numbed. 

"Something  has  happened,"  she  said.  "And  why  did  you 
keep  whispering  'yes,  yes'?  Whom  were  you  whispering 
to?" 

The  truth  was  that,  in  that  dreadful  trance,  my  conscience 
had  been  saying  to  me,  "Have  you  a  right  to  exercise  your 
power  over  this  girl  by  leading  her  like  a  lamb  to  death?" 
and  my  love  had  replied,  "Yes,  ten  thousand  times  yes," 

"Winifred,"  I  said,  "I  would  die  for  you." 

"Yes,  Henry,"  said  she,  "I  know  it ;  but  what  have  we  to 
do  with  death  now?" 

"To  save  you  from  harm  this  flesh  of  mine  would  rejoice 
at  crucifixion;  to  save  you  from  death  this  soul  and  body 
of  mine  would  rejoice  to  endure  a  thousand  years  of  hell- 
fire." 

She  turned  pale,  amazed  at  the  delirium  into  which  I  had 
passed. 

"To  save  you  from  harm,  dear,  I  would,"  said  I,  with  a 
quiet  fierceness  that  scared  her,  "immolate  the  whole  human 
race — mothers,  and  fathers,  and  children;  I  would  make  a 
hecatomb  of  them  all  to  save  this  body  of  yours,  this  sweet 
body,  alive." 

But  I  could  not  proceed.  What  I  had  meant  to  say  was 
this:— 


96  Aylwin 

"And  yet,  Winnie,  I  have  brought  you  here  to  his  boul- 
der to  die!" 

But  I  could  not  say  it — my  tongue  rebelled  and  would  not 
say  it. 

Winifred  was  so  full  of  health  and  enjoyment  of  life  that, 
courageous  as  she  was,  I  felt  that  the  prospect  of  certain 
and  imminent  death  must  appal  her;  and  to  see  the  look  of 
terror  break  over  her  face  confronting  death  was  what  I 
could  not  bear.  And  yet  the  thing  must  be  said.  But  at 
this  very  moment,  when  my  perplexity  seemed  direst,  a 
blessed  thought  came  to  me — a  subterfuge  holier  than  truth. 
I  knew  the  Cymric  superstition  about  "the  call  from  the 
grave,"  for  had  not  she  herself  just  told  me  of  it? 

"I  will  turn  Superstition,  accursed  Superstition  itself,  to 
account,"  I  muttered.  "I  will  pretend  that  I  am  enmeshed 
in  a  web  of  Fate,  and  doomed  to  die  here  myself.  Then,  if 
I  know  my  Winifred,  she  will,  of  her  own  free  mind,  die 
with  me." 

"Winnie,"  I  said,  "I  have  to  tell  you  something  that  I 
know  must  distress  you  sorely  on  my  account — some- 
thing that  must  wring  your  heart,  dear,  and  yet  it  must 
be  told." 

She  turned  her  head  sharply  round  with  a  look  of  alarm 
that  almost  silenced  me,  so  pathetic  was  it.  On  that  cou- 
rageous face  I  had  not  seen  alarm  before,  and  this  was  alarm 
for  evil  coming  to  me.  It  shook  my  heart — it  shook  my 
heart  so  that  I  could  not  speak. 

"I  felt,"  said  she,  "that  something  awful  had  happened. 
And  it  afifects  yourself,  Henry?" 

"It  .effects  myself." 

"And  very  deeply?" 

"Very  deeply,  Winnie." 

Then,  pulling  from  my  pocket  the  silver  casket  and  the 
parchment  scroll,  I  said,  "It  has  relation  to  these." 

"That  1  felt,"  said  she;  "how  could  it  be  otherwise?  Oh, 
the  miscreant!  I  curse  him;  I  curse  him!" 

"Winifred,"  I  said,  "between  me  and  this  casket,  and  the 
cross  mentioned  in  this  scroll,  there  is  a  mysterious  link. 
The  cross  is  an  amulet,  an  heirloom  of  dreadful  potency 
for  good  and  ill.  It  has  been  disturbed ;  it  has  been  stolen 
from  my  father's  grave,  and  there  is  but  one  way  of  setting 
right  that  disturbance.  To  avert  unspeakable  calamity  from 
falling  upon  two  entire  families  (the  family  of  Aylwin  and 


The  Moonlight  Cross  of  the  Gnostics     97 

that  of  her  to  whom  this  amulet  was  given)  a  sacrifice  is 
demanded." 

"Henry,  you  terrify  me  to  death.  What  is  the  sacrifice? 
Oh  God!   Oh  God!" 

"My  father's  son  must  die,  Winnie." 

She  turned  ashen  pale,  but,  struggling  to  be  playful,  she 
said:  "I  fear  that  the  family  of  Aylwin  and  the  family  of 
somebody  else  must  even  take  the  calamity  and  bear  it;  for 
I  don't  mean  my  Henry  to  die,  let  me  assure  both  families 
of  that." 

"Ah!  but,  Winnie,  I  am  under  a  solemn  oath  and  pledge 
to  bear  this  penalty;  and  we  part  to-night.  That  shriek 
which  so  appalled  you " 

"Well,  well,  the  shriek?"  said  she,  in  a  frenzy  of  impa- 
tience. 

I  made  no  answer,  but  she  answered  herself. 

"That  shriek  was  a  call  to  you,"  she  cried,  and  then  burst 
into  a  passion  of  tears,  "It  cannot  be,"  she  said.  "It  cannot 
and  shall  not  be;  God  is  too  good  to  sufifer  it."  Then  she 
fixed  her  eyes  upon  me  and  sobbed:  "Ah!  it  is  true!  I  feel  it 
is  all  true!  Yes,  they  are  calling  you,  and  that  is  why  my 
soul  answered  the  call.  Ah,  when  I  saw  you  just  now  lift 
your  head  from  my  breast  with  a  face  grey  and  wizened  as 
an  old  man's — when  I  saw  you  look  at  me,  I  knew  that 
something  dreadful  had  happened.  Oh,  I  knew,  I  knew! 
but  I  thought  it  had  happened  to  me.  The  love  and  pity  in 
your  eyes  when  you  opened  them  upon  me  made  me  thinlv 
it  was  my  trouble,  and  not  yours,  that  disturbed  you.  And 
now  I  know  it  is  yours,  and  you  are  going  to  die!  They  are 
calling  you.  Yes,  you  are  going  to  let  the  tide  drown  you! 
Oh,  my  love!  my  love!"  and  her  grief  was  so  acute  that  I 
knew  not  at  first  whether  in  this  I  had  done  well  after  all. 

"Winifred,"  I  said,  "you  must  bear  this.  I  have  always 
been  ready  to  take  death  when  it  should  come.  I  have  at 
least  had  one  blessed  time  with  Winifred  on  the  sands — 
Winifred  the  beloved  and  beautiful  girl — one  night,  as  the 
crown  to  the  happy  days  that  have  been  mine  with  Winifred 
the  beloved  and  beautiful  child.  And  that  night,  as  we 
were  walking  by  the  sea,  it  seemed  to  me  that  such  happi- 
ness as  was  ours  can  come  but  once — that  never  again  could 
there  be  a  night  equal  to  that." 

Smiles  broke  through  her  tears  as  she  listened  to  me.  I 
had  struck  the  risfht  chord. 


98  Aylwin 

"And  /  thought  so  too,"  she  said.  "It  was  indeed  a  night 
of  bliss.  Indeed,  indeed  God  has  been  good  to  us,  Henry," 
and  she  fell  into  my  arms  again. 

"And  now,  Winnie,"  I  said,  "we  must  kiss  and  part — part 
for  ever." 

Yes,  I  had  struck  the  right  chord.  As  she  lay  in  my  arms 
I  felt  her  soft  bosom  moving  with  a  little  hysterical  laugh 
of  derision  when  I  said  we  must  part.  And  then  she  rose 
and  sat  beside  me  upon  the  boulder,  looking  calm  and  fear- 
less at  the  tide  as  it  got  nearer  and  nearer  to  Needle  Point. 

"Yes,  dear,"  I  said,  looking  in  the  same  direction,  "you 
must  be  going;  see  how  the  waves  are  surrounding  the 
Point.  You  must  run,  Winnie — you  must  run,  and  leave 
me." 

"Yes,"  said  she,  still  gazing  across  to  the  Point,  "as  you 
say,  I  must  run,  but  not  yet,  dear;  plenty  of  time  yet;"  and 
she  smiled  to  herself  as  she  used  to  do  in  the  old  days,  when 
as  a  child  she  had  made  up  her  mind  to  do  something. 

Then  without  another  word  she  took  her  shawl  from  her 
shoulders,  and  pulled  it  out  to  see  its  length.  And  soon  I 
felt  her  fingers  stealing  my  penknife  from  my  waistcoat- 
pocket,  and  saw  her  deftly  cut  up  the  shawl,  strip  after 
strip,  and  weave  it  and  knot  it  into  a  rope,  and  tie  the  rope 
around  her  waist,  and  then  she  stooped  to  tie  it  around 
me. 

It  was  when  I  felt  her  warm  breath  about  my  neck  as  she 
stooped  over  me  to  tie  that  rope,  that  love  was  really  re- 
vealed to  me;  it  was  then,  and  not  till  then,  that  all  my  pre- 
vious love  for  Winifred  seemed  as  a  flicker  of  a  rushlight  to 
Salaman's  cloak  of  fire;  and  a  feeling  of  bliss  unutterable 
came  upon  me,  and  the  night  air  seemed  full  of  music,  and 
the  sky  above  seemed  opening,  as  she  whispered,  "Henry, 
Henry,  Henry,  in  a  fev;  minutes  you  will  be  mine."  But  the 
very  confidence  with  which  she  spoke  these  simple  words 
startled  me  as  from  a  dream.  "Suppose,"  I  thought,  "sup- 
pose my  last  drop  of  bliss  with  Winnie  were  being  tasted 
now!"  In  a  moment  I  felt  like  a  coward.  But  then  there 
came  r,  loud  crash  and  a  thunder  from  behind  the  landslip. 

"The  settlement!"  I  cried.  "The  coming  in  of  the  tide 
has  made  the  landslip  settle!" 

When  I  sat  with  closed  eyes  examining  my  fiery  photo- 
graph, I  had  calculated  the  "settlement"  at  the  return  of  the 
tide  as  being  among  the  chances  of  escape.     But  feeling 


The  Moonlight  Cross  of  the  Gnostics     99 

myself  to  be  engaged  in  a  duel  with  Circumstance  (more 
cruel  than  the  fiends),  I  believed  that  the  settlement  would 
come  too  late  for  us,  or  even  if  it  did  not  come  too  late,  it 
might  not  hide  away  the  spectacle.  The  settlement  had 
come ;  what  had  it  done  for  us  ?  This  I  must  know  at  once. 
"Untie  the  rope,"  I  said;  ''quick,  untie  the  rope,  there  is 
a  settlement  of  the  landslip." 

"But  what  has  the  settlement  to  do  with  us?"  said  Winnie. 
"It  has  to  do  with  us,  dear;  untie  the  rope.    It  has  much 
to  do  with  us,  Winnie,"  I  said;  for  now  the  determination 
to  save  her  life  came  on  me  stronger  than  ever. 

When  the  rope  was  untied  I  said,  "Wait  till  I  call,"  and  I 
ran  around  the  corner  of  the  debris.  The  great  unright  wall 
of  earth  and  sward,  from  which  had  stared  the  body  of 
Wynne,  had  fallen,  hiding  him  and  his  crime  together! 

To  return  round  the  corner  of  the  landslip  and  call  Wini- 
fred was  the  work  of  an  instant,  and,  quick  as  she  was  in 
answering  my  call,  by  the  time  she  had  reached  me  I  had 
thrown  of?  my  coat  and  boots. 

"Now  for  a  run  and  a  tussle  with  the  waves,  Winnie,"  I 
said. 

"Then  we  are  not  going  to  die?" 

"We  are  going  to  live.     Run;  in  six  more  returns  of  a 
wave  like  that  there  will  be  four  feet  of  water  at  the  Point." 
"Come  along.  Snap,"  said  Winifred,  and  she  flew  along 
the  sands  without  another  word. 

Ah,  she  could  run ! — faster  than  I  could,  with  my  bruised 
heel!    She  was  there  first. 

"Leap  in,  Winnie,"  I  cried,  "and  struggle  towards  the 
Point;  it  will  save  time.    I  shall  be  with  you  in  a  second." 

Winifred  plunged  into  the  tide  (Snap  following  with  a 
bark),  and  fought  her  way  so  bravely  that  my  fear  now  was 
lest  she  should  be  out  of  her  depth  before  I  could  reach  her, 
and  then,  clad  as  she  was,  she  would  certainly  drown.  But 
never  for  a  moment  did  her  good  sense  leave  her.  When 
she  was  nearly  waist-high  she  stopped  and  turned  round, 
gazing  at  me  as  I  tore  through  the  shallow  water — gazing 
with  a  wistful,  curious  look  that  her  face  would  have  worn 
had  we  been  playing. 

To  get  round  the  Point  and  pull  Winifred  round  was  no 
slight  task,  for  the  water  was  nearly  up  to  my  breast,  and  a 
woman's  clothing  seems  designed  for  drowning  her.  Any 
other  woman  than  Winifred  would  have  been  drowned,  and 


loo  Aylwin 

would  have  drowned  me  with  her.  But  in  straits  of  this 
kind  the  only  safety  lies  in  courage. 

"What  a  night's  adventures!"  said  Winifred,  after  we  had 
turned  the  Point,  and  were  walking  through  the  shallow 
water  towards  the  gangway. 

We  hurried  towards  the  cottage  as  fast  as  our  wet  clothes 
would  permit.  On  reaching  it  we  found  the  door  unlocked, 
and  entered. 

"Father  has  again  gone  to  bed,"  said  Winifred,  "and  left 
no  candle  burning  for  me." 

And  without  seeing  her  face,  I  knew  by  the  tremor  of 
the  hand  I  clasped  that  she  was  listening  with  shame  for 
the  drunken  snore  that  she  would  never  hear  again. 

I  lighted  a  match,  which  with  a  candle  I  found  on  a  chair. 

"Your  father  is  no  doubt  sound  asleep,"  I  said;  "you 
will  scarcely  awake  him  to-night?" 

"Oh  dear,  no,"  said  Winifred.  "Good-night.  You  look 
quite  ill.  Ever  since  you  lifted  up  your  head  from  my  breast, 
when  you  were  thinking  so  hard,  you  have  looked  quite  ill.'" 

Suddenly  I  remembered  that  I  must  be  up  and  on  the 
sands  betimes  in  the  morning,  to  see  whether  the  tide  had 
washed  away  the  fallen  earth  so  as  to  expose  Wynne's  body. 
To  prevent  Winifred  from  seeing  the  stolen  cross  was  now 
the  one  important  thing  in  the  world. 

I  bade  her  good-night  and  walked  towards  home. 


XI. 

She  was  right :  those  few  minutes  of  concentrated  agony 
had  in  truth  made  me  ill.  My  wet  clothes  clinging  round 
my  body  began  to  chill  me  now,  and  as  I  crept  into  the 
house  and  up-stairs  to  my  room,  my  teeth  were  chattering 
like  castanets. 

As  I  threw  off  my  wet  clothes  and  turned  into  bed,  I  was 
partially  forewarned  by  the  throbbing  at  my  temples,  the 
rolling  fire  at  the  back  of  my  eyeballs,  the  thirst  in  my 
parched  throat,  that  some  kind  of  illness,  some  kind  of  fever, 
was  upon  me.    And  no  wonder,  after  such  a  night! 

In  that  awful  trance,  when  I  had  sat  with  my  face  buried 
on  Winifred's  breast,  not  only  had  the  physiognomy  of  the 
cove,  but  every  circumstance  of  our  lives  together,  been 


The  Moonlight  Cross  of  the  Gnostics   loi 

photographed  in  my  brain  in  one  picture  of  fire.  When, 
after  the  concentrated  agony  of  those  first  moments  of  ten- 
sion, I  looked  up  into  Winifred's  face,  as  though  awakening 
from  a  dream,  my  flesh  had  "appeared,"  she  told  me,  "grey 
and  wizened,  like  the  flesh  of  an  old  man."  The  mental 
and  physical  effects  of  this  were  now  gathering  around  me 
and  upon  me. 

From  a  painful  slumber  I  awoke  in  about  an  hour  with 
red-heat  at  my  brain  and  a  sickening  dread  at  my  heart,  "ft 
is  fever,"  thought  I;  "I  am  going  to  be  ill;  and  what  is  there 
to  do  in  the  morning  at  the  ebb  of  the  tide  before  Winifred 
can  go  upon  the  sands  ?  I  ought  not  to  have  come  home  at 
all,"  I  said.  "Suppose  illness  were  to  seize  me  and  prevent 
my  getting  there?"  The  dreadful  thought  alone  paralysed 
me  quite.  Under  it  I  lay  as  under  a  nightmare.  I  scarcely 
dared  try  to  get  out  of  bed,  lest  I  should  find  my  fears  well- 
grounded.  At  last,  cautiously  and  timorously,  I  put  one 
leg  out  of  bed  and  then  the  other,  till  at  length  I  felt  the 
Httle  ridges  of  the  carpet ;  but  my  knees  gave  way,  my  head 
swam,  my  stomach  heaved  with  a  deadly  nausea,  and  I  fell 
like  a  log  on  the  floor. 

As  1  lay  there  I  knew  that  I  was  indeed  in  the  grasp  of 
fever.  I  nearly  went  crazed  from  terror  at  the  thought  that 
in  a  few  minutes  I  should  perhaps  lapse  into  unconscious- 
ness and  be  unable  to  rise — unable  to  reach  the  sands  in  the 
morning  and  seek  for  Wynne's  body — unable  even  to  send 
some  one  there  as  a  substitute  to  perform  that  task.  But 
then  whom  was  I  to  send?  whom  could  I  entrust  with  such 
a  commission?  I  was  under  a  pledge  to  my  dead  father 
never  to  divulge  the  secret  of  the  amulet  save  to  my  mother 
and  uncle.  And,  besides,  if  I  would  effectually  save  Winifred 
from  the  harm  I  dreaded,  the  hideous  sacrilege  committed 
by  her  father  must  be  kept  a  secret  from  servants  and  towns- 
people. Whom  then  could  I  send  on  this  errand?  At  the 
present  moment,  there  were  but  four  people  in  the  world 
who  knew  that  the  cross  and  casket  had  been  placed  in  the 
coflin — my  mother,  my  uncle,  myself,  and  now,  alas!  Wini- 
fred. My  mother  was  the  one  person  who  could  do  what 
I  wanted  done.  Her  sagacity  I  knew ;  her  courage  I  knew. 
But  how  could  I — how  dare  I,  broach  such  a  matter  to  her? 
I  felt  it  would  be  sheer  madness  to  do  so,  and  yet,  in  my  dire 
strait,  in  my  terror  at  the  illness  I  was  fighting  with,  I  did  n, 
as  I  am  going  to  tell. 


102  Aylwin 

By  this  time  the  noise  of  my  fall  had  brought  up  the 
servants.  They  lifted  me  into  bed  and  proposed  fetching 
our  medical  man.  But  I  forbade  them  to  do  so,  and  said, 
"I  want  to  speak  to  my  mother." 

"She  is  herself  unwell,  sir,"  said  the  man  to  whom  I  spoke. 

"I  know,"  I  replied.  "Call  her  maid  and  tell  her  that  my 
business  with  my  mother  is  very  important,  or  I  would  not 
have  dreamed  of  disturbing  her;  but  see  her  I  must" 

The  man  looked  dubious,  but  observing  my  wet  clothes 
on  a  chair  he  seemed  to  think  that  something  had  happened, 
and  went  to  do  my  bidding. 

In  a  very  short  time  my  mother  entered  the  room.  I  felt 
that  my  moments  of  consciousness  were  brief,  and  began 
my  story  as  soon  as  we  were  alone.  I  told  her  how  the  sud- 
den dread  that  Wynne  would  steal  the  amulet  had  come 
upon  me;  I  told  her  how  I  had  run  down  to  the  churchyard 
and  discovered  the  landslip;  I  told  her  how,  on  seeing  the 
landslip,  I  had  descended  the  gangway  and  found  the  body 
of  Wynne,  the  amulet,  the  casket,  and  the  written  curse.  But 
I  did  not  tell  her  that  I  had  met  Winifred  on  the  sands.  Ex- 
cited as  I  was,  I  had  the  presence  of  mind  not  to  tell  her  that. 

As  I  proceeded  with  my  narrative,  with  my  mother  sitting 
by  my  bedside,  a  look  of  horror,  then  a  look  of  loathing, 
then  a  look  of  scorn,  swept  over  her  face.  I  knew  that  the 
horror  was  of  the  sacrilege.  I  knew  that  the  loathing  and 
the  haughty  scorn  expressed  her  feelings  toward  the  de- 
spoiler — the  father  of  her  whose  cause  I  might  have  to  plead; 
and  I  began  to  wish  from  the  bottom  of  my  heart  that  I  had 
not  taken  her  into  my  confidence.  When  I  got  to  the  find- 
ing of  Tom's  body,  and  the  look  of  terror  stamped  upon  his 
face,  a  new  expression  broke  over  hers — an  expression  of 
triumphant  hate  that  was  fearful. 

"Thank  God  at  least  for  that!"  she  said.  Then  she  mur- 
mured, "But  that  does  not  atone." 

Ah!  how  I  regretted  now  that  I  had  consulted  her  on  a 
subject  where  her  proud  imperious  nature  must  be  so  deeply 
disturbed.    But  it  was  too  late  to  retreat. 

"Henry,"  she  said,  "this  is  a  shocking  story  you  tell  me. 
After  losing  my  husband  this  is  the  worst  that  could  have 
happened  to  me — the  violation  of  his  sacred  tomb.  Had 
I  only  hearkened  to  my  own  misgiving  about  the  miscreant! 
Yet  I  wonder  you  did  not  wait  till  the  morning  before  telling 
me." 


The  Moonlight  Cross  of  the  Gnostics   103 

"Wait  till  the  morning?"  I  said,  forgetting  that  she  did 
not  know  what  was  at  my  heart. 

"Doubtless  the  matter  is  important,  Henry,"  said  she. 
"Still,  the  mischief  is  done,  the  hideous  crime  has  been  com- 
mitted, and  the  news  of  it  could  have  waited  till  morning." 

"But,  mother,  unless  my  father's  words  are  idle  breath,  it 
is  important,  most  important,  that  the  amulet  should  again 
be  buried  with  him.  I  meant  to  go  to  the  sands  in  the 
morning  and  wait  for  the  ebbing  tide — I  meant  to  take  the 
cross  from  the  breast  of  the  dead  man,  and  to  replace  it  in 
my  father's  coffin.  That,  mother,  was  what  I  meant  to  do. 
But  I  am  too  ill  to  move;  I  feel  that  in  an  hour  or  so,  or  in  a 
few  minutes,  I  shall  be  delirious.    And  then,  mother!  Oh, 

then! "   My  mother  looked  astonished  at  my  vehemence 

upon  the  subject. 

"Henry,"  she  said,  "I  had  no  idea  that  you  felt  such  an 
interest  in  the  matter;  I  have  certainly  misjudged  your  char- 
acter entirely.    And  now,  what  do  you  want  me  to  do?" 

"Nobody,"  I  said,  "must  know  of  the  cross  but  ourselves. 
I  want  you,  mother,  to  do  what  /  cannot  do:  I  want  you  to 
go  on  the  sands  and  wait  for  the  turn  of  the  tide;  I  want  you 
to  take  the  cross  from  Wynne's  breast,  if  the  body  should  be 
exposed,  and  secure  it  in  secret  until  it  can  be  replaced  in 
the  coffin." 

"/  do  this,  Henry?"  said  my  mother,  with  a  look  of  be- 
wilderment at  my  earnestness.  "Yet  there  is  reason  in  what 
you  say,  and  grievous  as  the  task  would  be  for  me,  I  must 
consider  it." 

"But  you  will  engage  to  do  it,  mother?" 

"Really,  Henry,  you  forget  yourself, — you  forget  your 
mother  too.  For  me  to  go  down  on  the  sands  and  watch  the 
ebbing  of  the  tide,  and  then  defile  myself  by  touching  the 
body  of  this  wretch,  is  a  task  I  naturally  shrink  from.  Still 
if,  on  thinking  it  over,  I  find  it  my  duty  to  do  it,  it  will  not 
be  needful  for  me  to  enter  into  a  compact  with  my  son  that 
tny  duty  to  my  dead  husband  shall  be  performed.  Good- 
night. I  quite  think  you  will  be  better  in  the  morning.  I 
see  no  signs  myself  of  the  fever  you  seem  to  dread,  and, 
alas !  I  am  not,  as  you  know,  ignorant  of  the  way  in  which  a 
fever  begins." 

She  was  going  out  of  the  room  when  I  exclaimed,  in  sheer 
desperation:  "Mother,  I  have  something  else  to  say  to  you. 
You    remember    the    little    girl,    the    Httle    blue-eyed    girl. 


1 04  Aylwin 

Wynne's  daughter,  who  came  here  once,  and  you  were  so 
kind  to  her,  so  gracious  and  so  kind;"  and  I  seized  her  hand 
and  covered  it  with  kisses,  for  I  was  beside  myself  with 
alarm  lest  my  one  hope  should  go. 

The  sudden  little  laugh  of  bitter  scorn  that  came  from  my 
mother's  lips,  the  sudden  spasm  that  shook  her  frame,  the 
sudden  shadow  as  of  night  that  swept  across  her  features, 
should  at  once  have  hushed  my  confession.  But  1  went  on; 
my  tongue  would  not  stop  now:  I  felt  that  my  eloquence, 
the  eloquence  of  Winifred's  danger,  must  conquer,  must 
soften  even  the  hard  pride  of  her  race. 

"And  she  has  never  forgotten  your  graciousness  to  her, 
mother." 

"Well?"  said  my  mother,  in  a  tone  whose  velvet  softness 
withered  me. 

"Well,  mother,  she  is  in  all  things  the  very  opposite  of 
her  father.  This  very  night  she  told  me" — and  I  was  actu- 
ally on  the  verge  of  repeating  poor  Winifred's  prattle  about 
her  resembling  her  mother,  and  not  her  father  (for  already 
my  brain  had  succumbed  to  the  force  of  the  oncoming  fever, 
and  the  catastrophe  I  was  dreading  made  of  me  a  frank  and 
confiding  child). 

"Well?"  said  my  mother,  in  a  voice  softer  and  more  vel- 
vety still.    "What  did  she  tell  you?" 

That  tone  ought  to  have  convinced  me  of  the  folly,  the 
worse  than  folly,  of  saying  another  word  to  her. 

"But  I  can  conquer  her,"  I  thought;  "I  can  conquer  her 
yet.  When  she  comes  to  know  all  the  piteousness  of  Wini- 
fred's case,  she  must  yield." 

"Yes,  mother,"  I  cried,  "she  is  in  all  things  the  very  oppo- 
site of  Tom.  She  has  such  a  horror  of  sacrilege;  she  has 
such  a  dread  of  a  crime  and  a  curse  like  this;  she  has  such  a 
superstitious  belief  in  the  power  of  a  dead  man's  curse  to 
cHng  to  the  delinquent's  offspring,  that,  if  she  knew  of  what 
her  father  had  done,  she  would  go  mad — raving  mad, 
mother — she  would  indeed !"  And  I  fell  back  on  the  pillow 
exhausted. 

"Well,  Henry,  and  is  this  what  you  summoned  me  from 
my  bed  to  tell  me — that  Wynne's  daughter  will  most  likely 
object  to  share  the  consequences  of  her  father's  crime?  A 
very  natural  objection,  and  I  am  really  sorry  for  her;  but 
further  than  that  I  have  certainly  no  aflfair  with  her." 

"But,  mother,  the  body'  of  her  father  lies  beneath  the 


The  Moonlight  Cross  of  the  Gnostics   105 

debris  on  the  shore;  the  ebbing  tide  may  leave  it  exposed, 
and  the  poor  girl,  missing  her  father  in  the  morning,  will 
seek  him  perhaps  on  the  shore  and  find  him — find  him  with 
the  proof  of  his  crime  on  his  breast,  and  know  that  she  in- 
herits the  curse — my  father's  curse!  Oh,  think  of  that, 
mother — think  of  it.    And  you  only  can  prevent  it." 

For  a  few  moments  there  was  intense  silence  in  the  room. 
I  saw  that  my  mother  was  reflecting.    At  last  she  said: 

"You  say  that  Wynne's  daughter  told  you  something  to- 
night.   Where  did  you  see  her?" 

"On  the  sands." 

"At  what  hour?" 

"At — at — at — about  eleven,  or  twelve,  or  one  o'clock." 

I  felt  that  I  was  getting  into  a  net,  but  was  too  ill  to  know 
what  I  was  doing.  My  mother  paused  for  awhile;  I  waited 
as  the  prisoner  tried  for  his  life  waits  when  the  jury  have 
retired  to  consult.  I  clutched  the  bed-clothes  to  stay  the 
trembling  of  my  limbs.  On  a  chair  by  my  bedside  was  my 
watch,  which  had  been  stopped  by  the  sea-water.  I  saw 
her  take  it  up  mechanically,  look  at  it,  and  lay  it  down 
again.  In  the  agony  of  my  suspense  I  yet  observed  her 
smallest  movement. 

"And  in  what  capacity  am  I  to  undertake  this  expedi- 
tion?" said  she  at  length,  in  the  same  quiet  tone,  that  soul- 
quelling  tone  she  always  adopted  when  her  passion  was  at 
white  heat.  "Is  it  in  the  capacity  of  your  father's  wife  exe- 
cuting his  wishes  about  the  amulet?  Or  is  it  as  the  friend, 
protectress  and  guardian  of  Miss  Wynne?" 

She  sat  down  again  by  my  bedside,  and  communed  with 
herself — sometimes  fixing  an  abstracted  gaze  upon  me, 
sometimes  looking  across  me  at  the  very  spot  where  in  the 
shadow  beside  my  bed  I  had  seemed  to  see  the  words  of  the 
Psalmist's  curse  written  in  letters  of  fire.  At  last  she  said 
quietly,  "Henry,  I  will  undertake  this  commission  of  yours." 

"Dear  mother!"  I  exclaimed,  in  my  delight. 

"I  will  undertake  it,"  pursued  my  mother  in  the  same 
quiet  tone,  "on  one  condition." 

"Any  condition  in  the  world,  mother.  There  is  nothing 
I  will  not  do,  nothing  I  will  not  sacrifice  or  sufifer,  if  you 
will  only  aid  me  in  saving  this  poor  girl.  Name  your  con- 
dition, mother;  you  can  name  nothing  I  will  not  comply 
with." 

"I  am  not  so  sure  of  that,  Henry.    Let  me  be  quite  frank 


1 06  Aylwin 

with  you.  I  do  not  wish  to  entrap  you  into  making  an  en- 
gagement you  cannot  keep.  You  have  corroborated  to- 
night what  I  half  suspected  when  I  saw  you  talking  to  the 
girl  in  the  churchyard;  there  is  a  very  vigorous  flirtation 
going  on  between  you  and  this  wretched  man's  daughter." 

"Flirtation?"  I  said,  and  the  incongruity  of  the  word  as 
applied  to  such  a  passion  as  mine  did  not  vex  or  wound  me ; 
it  made  me  smile. 

"Well,  for  her  sake,  I  hope  it  is  nothing  more,"  said  my 
mother.  "In  view  of  the  impassable  gulf  between  her  and 
you,  I  do  for  her  sake  sincerely  hope  that  it  is  nothing  more 
than  a  flirtation." 

"Pardon  me,  mother,"  I  said,  "it  was  the  word  'flirtation' 
that  made  me  smile." 

"We  will  not  haggle  about  words,  Henry;  give  it  what 
name  may  please  you,  it  is  all  the  same  to  me.  But  flirta- 
tions of  this  kind  will  sometimes  grow  serious,  as  the  case  of 
Percy  Aylwin  and  the  Gypsy  girl  shows.  Now,  Henry,  I 
do  not  accuse  you  of  entertaining  the  mad  idea  of  really 
marrying  this  girl,  though  such  things,  as  you  know,  have 
been  in  our  family.  But  you  are  my  only  son,  and  I  do  love 
you,  Henry,  whatever  may  be  your  opinion  on  that  point ; 
and,  because  I  love  you,  I  would  rather,  far  rather,  be  a 
lonely,  childless  woman  in  the  world,  I  would  far  rather  see 
you  dead  on  this  floor,  than  see  you  marry  Winifred 
Wynne." 

"Ah!  mother,  the  cruelty  of  this  family  pride  has  always 
been  the  curse  of  the  Aylwins." 

"It  seems  cruel  to  you  now,  because  you  are  a  boy,  a 
generous  boy.  You  think  it  the  romantic,  poetic  thing  to 
elevate  a  low  girl  to  your  own  station — perhaps  even  to 
show  3'our  superiority  to  conventions  by  marrying  the 
daughter  of  the  miscreant  who  has  desecrated  your  own 
father's  tomb.  But,  Henry,  I  know  the  race  to  which  yon 
and  I  belong.  In  five  years'  time — in  three  years,  or  perhaps 
in  two — you  will  thank  me  for  this;  you  will  say:  'My  moth- 
er's love  was  not  cruel,  but  wise.'  " 

"Oh,  mother!"  I  said,  "any  condition  but  that." 

"I  sec  that  you  know  what  my  condition  is  before  I  utter 
it.  If  you  will  give  me  your  word — and  the  word  of  an  Ayl- 
win is  an  oath — if  you  will  give  me  your  word  that  you  will 
never  marry  Winifred  Wynne,  I  will  do  as  you  desire.  I 
will  myself  go  upon  the  sands  in  the  morning,  and  if  the 


The  Moonlight  Cross  of  the  Gnostics   107 

body  has  been  exposed  by  the  tide  I  will  secure  the  evidence 
of  her  father's  guilt,  in  order  to  save  the  girl  from  the  suffer- 
ing which  the  knowledge  of  that  guilt  would  cause  her,  as 
you  suppose." 

''As  I  suppose!" 

"Again  I  say,  Henry,  we  will  not  quarrel  about  words." 

I  turned  sick  with  despair. 

"And  on  no  other  terms,  mother?" 

"On  no  other  terms,"  said  she. 

"Oh,  mercy,  mother!  mercy!  you  know  not  what  you  do. 
I  could  not  live  without  her;  I  should  die  without  her." 

"Better  die  then!"  exclaimed  my  mother,  with  an  expres- 
sion of  ineffable  scorn,  and  losing  for  the  first  time  her  self- 
possession;  "better  die  than  marry  like  that." 

"She  is  my  very  life  now,  mother." 

"Have  I  not  said  you  had  better  die  then?  On  no  other 
terms  will  I  go  on  those  sands.  But  I  tell  you  frankly  what 
I  think  about  this  matter.  I  think  that  you  absurdly  ex- 
aggerate the  effect  the  knowledge  of  her  father's  crime  will 
have  upon  the  girl." 

"No,  no;  I  do  not.  Mercy,  dear  mother,  mercy!  I  am 
your  only  child." 

"That  is  the  very  reason  why  you,  who  may  some  day  be 
the  heir  of  one  of  the  first  houses  in  England,  must  never 
marry  Winifred  Wynne." 

"But  I  don't  want  to  be  the  heir  of  the  Aylwins;  I  don't 
want  my  uncle's  property,"  I  retorted.  "Nor  do  I  want  the 
other  bauble  prizes  of  the  Aylwins." 

"Providence  has  taken  Frank,  and  says  you  must  stand 
where  you  stand,"  replied  my  mother  solemnly.  "You  may 
even  some  day,  should  Cyril  be  childless,  succeed  to  the 
earldom,  and  then  what  an  alliance  would  this  be!" 

"Earldom!  I'd  not  have  it.  I'd  trample  on  the  coronet. 
Gingerbread!  I'd  trample  it  in  the  mud,  if  it  were  to  sever 
me  from  Winifred." 

"You  must  succeed  to  it  should  Cyril  Aylwin,  who  seems 
disinclined  to  marry,  die  childless,"  said  my  mother,  quietly ; 
"and  by  that  time  you  may  perhaps  have  reached  man's 
estate." 

"Pity,  mother,  pity!"  I  cried  in  despair,  as  I  looked  at  the 
strong  woman  who  bore  me. 

"Pity  upon  whom?  Have  pity  upon  me,  and  upon  the 
family  you  now  represent.    As  to  all  the  fearful  effects  that 


io8  Aylwin 

the  knowledge  of  this  sacrilege  will  have  upon  the  girl,  that 
is  a  subject  upon  which  you  must  allow  me  to  have  my  own 
opinion.  God  tempers  the  wind  to  the  shorn  lamb,  and  pro- 
vides thick  skms  for  the  canaille.  What  will  concern  her 
chiefly,  perhaps  entirely,  will  be  the  loss  of  her  father,  and 
she  will  soon  know  of  that,  whether  she  finds  the  body  on  the 
sands  or  not.  This  kind  of  person  is  not  nearly  so  sensitive 
as  my  romantic  Henry  supposes.  However,  my  condition 
will  not  be  departed  from.  If  you  consent  to  give  up  this 
girl  I  will  go  on  the  sands;  I  will  defile  my  fingers;  I  will 
secure  the  stolen  amulet  at  the  ebb  of  the  tide,  should  the 
corpse  become  exposed.  If  you  will  not  consent  to  give  her 
up,  there  is  an  end  of  the  matter,  and  words  are  being 
wasted  between  us." 

''Give  up  Winifred,  mother?    That  is  not  possible." 

"Then  there  is  no  more  to  be  said.  We  will  not  waste 
our  time  in  discussing  impossibilities.  And  I  am  really  so 
depressed  and  unwell  that  I  must  return  to  my  room.  I 
hope  to  hear  you  are  better  in  the  morning,  and  I  think  you 
will  be.  The  excitement  of  this  night  and  your  anxiety 
about  the  girl  have  unstrung  your  nerves,  and  you  have 
lost  that  courage  and  endurance  which  are  yours  by  birth- 
right." 

And  she  left  the  room. 

But  she  had  no  sooner  gone  than  there  came  before  my 
eyes  the  insupportable  picture  of  a  slim  figure  walking  along 
the  sands,  stooping  to  look  at  some  object  among  the  debris, 
standing  aghast  at  the  sight  of  her  dead  father  with  the 
evidence  of  his  hideous  crime  on  his  own  breast;  there  came 
the  sound  of  a  cry  to  "Henry"  for  help!  I  beat  my  head 
against  the  bedstead  till  I  was  nearly  stunned.  I  yelled 
and  bellowed  like  a  maniac:  "Alother,  come  back!" 

When  she  returned  to  my  bedside  my  eyes  were  glaring  so 
that  my  mother  stood  appalled,  and  (as  she  afterwards 
owned  to  me)  was  nearly  jdelding  her  point. 

"Mother,"  I  said,  "I  consent  to  your  condition:  I  will  give 
her  up — but  oh,  save  her!  Let  there  be  no  dallying,  let 
there  be  no  risk,  mother.  Let  nothing  prevent  your  going 
upon  the  sands  in  the  morning — early,  quite  early — and 
every  morning  at  the  ebbing  of  the  tide." 

"I  will  keep  my  word,"  she  said. 

"You  will  use  the  fullest  and  best  means  to  save  her?" 

"I  will  keep  my  word,"  she  said,  and  left  the  room. 


The  Moonlight  Cross  of  the  Gnostics  ,  109 

"I  have  saved  her!"  I  cried  over  and  over  again,  as  I  sank 
back  on  my  pillow.  Then  the  delirium  of  fever  came  upon 
me,  and  I  lay  tossing  as  upon  a  sea  of  fire. 


XII. 

Weak  in  body  and  mind  as  an  infant,  I  woke  again  to  con- 
sciousness. Through  the  open  window  the  sunlight,  with 
that  tender  golden-yellow  tone  which  comes  with  morning 
in  England,  was  pouring  between  the  curtains,  and  illu- 
minating the  white  counterpane.  Then  a  soft  breeze  came 
and  slightly  moved  the  curtains,  and  sent  the  light  and 
shadows  about  the  bed  and  the  opposite  wall — a  breeze 
laden  with  the  scent  I  always  associated  with  Wynne's  cot- 
tage, the  scent  of  geraniums.  I  raised  myself  on  my  elbows, 
and  gazed  over  the  geraniums  on  the  window-sill  at  the  blue 
sky,  which  was  as  free  of  clouds  as  though  it  were  an 
Italian  one,  save  that  a  little  feathery  cloud  of  a  palish  gold 
was  slowly  moving  towards  the  west. 

"It  is  shaped  like  a  hand,"  I  said  dreamily,  and  then  came 
the  picture  of  Winifred  in  the  churchyard  singing,  and  point- 
ing to  just  such  a  golden  cloud,  and  then  came  the  picture 
of  Tom  Wynne  reeling  towards  us  from  the  church-porch, 
and  then  came  everything  in  connection  with  him  and  with 
her;  everything  down  to  the  very  last  words  which  I  had 
spoken  about  her  to  my  mother  before  unconsciousness 
had  come  upon  me.  But  what  I  did  not  know — what  I  was 
now  burning  to  know  without  delay — was  what  time  had 
passed  since  then. 

I  called  out  "Mother!"  A  nurse,  who  was  sitting  in  the 
room,  but  hidden  from  me  by  a  large  carved  and  corniced 
oak  wardrobe,  sprang  up  and  told  me  that  she  would  go 
and  fetch  my  mother. 

"Mother,"  I  said,  when  she  entered  the  room,  "you've 
been?" 

"Yes,"  said  she,  taking  a  seat  by  my  bedside,  and  mo- 
tioning the  nurse  to  leave  us. 

"And  you  were  in  time,  mother!" 

"More  than  in  time,"  said  she.  "There  was  nothing  to  do. 
I  have  realised,  however,  that  your  extraordinary  and  horri- 


iio  Aylwin 

ble  story  was  true.     It  was  not  a  fever-dream.    The  tomb 
has  been  desecrated." 

"But,  mother,  you  went  as  you  promised  to  the  sands  in 
Church  Cove,  and  you  waited  for  the  ebb  of  the  tide?" 

"I  did." 

"And  you  found " 

"Nothing;  no  corpse  exposed." 

"And  you  went  again  the  next  day?" 

"I  did." 

"And  you  found " 

"Nothing." 

"But  how  many  days  have  passed,  mother?  How  many 
days  have  I  been  lying  here?" 

"Seven." 

"And  no  sign  of — of  the  body  to  be  seen?" 

"None.  The  wretch  must  have  been  buried  for  ever  be- 
neath the  great  mass  of  the  fallen  clifif.    I  went  no  more." 

"Oh,  mother,  you  should  have  gone  every  day.  Think  of 
the  frightful  risk,  mother.  On  the  very  day  after  you  ceased 
your  visits  the  body  might  have  been  turned  up  by  the  tide, 
and  she  might  have  gone  and  seen  it." 

The  picture  was  too  terrible.  I  fell  back  exhausted.  I 
revived,  however,  in  a  somewhat  calmer  mood.  When  my 
mother  came  into  the  room  again,  I  returned  at  once  to  the 
subject  I  reproached  her  bitterly  for  not  having  gone 
every  day.  She  listened  to  my  reproaches  in  entire  calm- 
ness. 

"It  was  idle  to  keep  repeating  these  visits  every  day,"  said 
she,  "and  I  consider  that  I  have  fully  performed  my  part  of 
the  compact.    I  expect  you  to  fulfil  yours." 

I  remained  silent,  preparing  for  a  deadly  struggle  with 
the  only  being  on  earth  I  had  ever  really  feared. 

"I  have  fully  kept  my  word,  Henry,"  said  she,  "and  have 
done  for  you  more  than  my  duty  to  your  father's  memory 
warranted  me  in  doing." 

"But,  mother,  you  did  not  do  all  that  you  promised  to  do; 
you  did  not  prevent  all  risk  of  Winifred's  finding  it.  She 
may  find  it  even  yet." 

"That  is  not  likely  now.  I  have  performed  my  part  of 
the  compact,  and  I  expect  you  to  perform  yours." 

"You  did  not  use  all  means  to  save  my  Winifred  from 
worse  than  death — from  madness;  you  did  not  use  all  means 
to  save  me  from  dying  of  self-murder  or  of  a  broken  heart; 


The  Moonlight  Cross  of  the  Gnostics     1 1 1 

and  the  compact  is  broken.  Whether  or  not  I  could  have 
kept  my  faith  with  you  by  breaking  troth  with  her,  it  is 
you  who  have  set  me  free.  Mother,"  I  said,  fiercely,  "in 
such  a  compact  it  must  be  the  letter  of  the  bond." 

"Mean  subterfuge,  unworthy  of  your  descent,"  said  my 
mother  quietly,  but  with  one  of  those  looks  of  hers  that 
used  to  frighten  me  once. 

"No,  no,  mother;  you  have  not  kept  the  letter  of  the  bond, 
and  I  am  free.  You  did  not  take  the  fullest  and  best  means 
to  save  Winifred.  Your  compact  was  to  save  her  from  the 
risk  I  told  you  of.  And,  mother,  mother,  listen  to  me!"  I 
cried,  in  a  state  of  crazy  excitement  now:  "in  the  darkest 
moment  of  my  life,  when  I  was  prostrate  and  helpless,  you 
were  pitiless  as  Pride.  Listen,  mother:  Winifred  Wynne 
shall  be  mine.  Not  all  the  Aylvvins  that  have  ever  eaten  of 
wheat  and  fattened  the  worms  shall  prevent  that.  She  shall 
be  mine.    I  say,  she  shall  be  mine!" 

"The  daughter  of  the  man  who  desecrated  my  husband's 
tomb!" 

"And  my  father's!  That  man's  daughter  shall  be  my 
wife,"  I  said,  sitting  up  in  bed  and  looking  into  those  eyes, 
bright  and  proud,  which  had  been  wont  to  make  all  other 
eyes  blink  and  quail. 

"Cursed  by  your  father,  and  cursed  by  God " 

"That  curse — for  what  it  may  be  worth — I  take  upon  my 
own  head;  the  curse  shall  be  mine.  Even  if  I  believed  the 
threat  about  the  'desolate  places,'  I  would  be  there;  if  bare- 
footed she  had  to  beg  from  door  to  door,  rest  assured, 
mother,  that  an  Aylwin  would  hold  the  wallet — would  leave 
the  whole  Aylwin  brood,  their  rank,  their  money,  and  their 
stupid,  vulgar  British  pride,  to  walk  beside  the  beggar." 

The  look  on  my  mother's  face  would  have  terrified  most 
people.  It  would  have  terrified  me  once.  But  in  the  frenzy 
into  which  I  had  then  passed,  nothing  would  have  made  me 
quail. 

"Your  services,  mother,  are  no  longer  needed,"  I  said. 
"Wynne's  corpse  might  have  been  washed  up  by  the  tide, 
and  your  compact  was  to  be  there  to  see;  but  now,  most 
likely,  it  is  hidden,  not  under  loose  fragments  as  I  had 
feared,  but  under  the  great  mass  of  earth, — hidden  for 
ever." 

"But  you  forget,"  said  my  mother,  "that  the  amulet  has  to 
be  recovered." 


1 1  2  Aylwin 

"Mother,"  I  said,  in  the  state  of  wild  suspiciousness  con- 
cerning her  and  her  motives  into  which  I  had  now  passed, 
"I  know  what  your  words  imply, — that  Winifred  is  not  yet 
out  of  danger;  the  evidence  of  the  curse  and  the  crime  can 
be  dug  up." 

"I  have  no  wish  to  harm  the  girl,  Henry.  You  mistake 
me." 

"Then,  mother,  we  must  not  mistake  each  other  in  this 
matter,"  I  said.  "You  have  alluded  to  the  word  of  an  Ayl- 
win. With  me,  as  with  the  best  of  us,  the  word  of  an  Aylwin 
is  an  oath.  Wynne's  corpse  is  now  hidden;  the  cross  is  now 
hidden;  I  give  you  the  word  of  an  Aylwin  that  the  man  who 
digs  up  that  corpse  I  will  kill.  I  will  not  consider  that  he  is 
an  irresponsible  agent  of  yours;  I  will  kill  him,  and  his  blood 
shall  be  upon  the  head  of  her  who  sends  him,  knowing, 
to  his  death." 

"And  be  hanged,"  said  my  mother. 

"Perhaps.  But  after  her  father's  crime  has  been  exposed, 
the  first  thing  for  me  is — to  kill!" 

"Why,  boy,  there's  murder  in  your  eyes!"  said  my  mother, 
taken  ofif  her  guard. 

"Oh,  mother,  mother,  can  you  not  see  that  no  wolf  with  a 
stolen  lamb  in  its  mouth  was  ever  more  pitilessly  shot  down 
by  the  owner  of  that  lamb  than  any  hireling  wolf  of  yours 
would  be  shot  down  by  me?" 

"Boy,  are  you  quite  demented?" 

"Listen,  mother.  To  prevent  Winifred  from  knowing  that 
her  father  had  stolen  that  amulet,  and  so  brought  down 
upon  her  the  curse,  I  would  have  drowned  her  with  myself 
in  the  tide.  We  sat  waiting  for  the  tide  to  drown  us,  when 
the  settlement  came  at  the  last  moment  and  buried  it  away 
from  her.  Is  it  likely  that  I  should  hesitate  to  kill  a  clod- 
hopper, or  a  score,  if  only  to  take  my  vengeance  on  you  and 
Fate?    The  homicide  now  will  be  yours." 

She  left,  giving  me  a  glance  of  defiance;  but  before  our 
eyes  ended  that  conflict,  I  saw  which  of  us  had  conquered. 

"Hate  is  strong,"  I  murmured,  as  I  sank  down  on  my 
pillow,  "and  destiny  is  strong;  but  oh,  Winnie,  Winnie — 
stronger  than  hate,  and  stronger  than  destiny  and  death,  is 
love.  She  knows,  Winnie,  that  the  life  of  the  man  who  should 
dig  up  that  corpse  would  not  be  worth  an  hour's  purchase ; 
she  knows,  Winnie,  that  in  the  court  of  conscience  she  alone 
is  answerable  now  for  what  may  befall;  and  you  are  safe! 


The  Moonlight  Cross  of  the  Gnostics     1 1  3 

But  poor  mother!  My  poor  dear  mother,  whom  once  I 
loved  so  dearly,  was  it  indeed  you  I  struggled  with  just  now? 
Mother,  mother,  was  it  you?" 

This  interview  retarded  my  recovery,  and  I  had  a  serious 
relapse. 

The  fever  was  a  severe  one.  The  symptoms  were  aggra- 
vated by  these  most  painful  and  trying  interviews  with  my 
mother,  and  by  my  increasing  anxiety  about  the  fate  of 
Winifred.  Yet  my  vigorous  constitution  began  to  show 
signs  of  conquering.  Of  Winifred  I  could  learn  nothing, 
save  what  could  be  gleaned  from  the  servants  in  attendance, 
who  seemed  merely  to  have  heard  that  Tom  Wynne  was 
missing,  that  he  had  probably  fallen  drunk  over  the  clifT 
and  been  washed  out  to  sea,  and  that  his  daughter  was  seek- 
ing him  everywhere.  As  the  days  passed  by,  however,  and 
no  hint  reached  me  that  the  corpse  had  been  found  on  the 
sands,  I  concluded  that,  when  the  larger  mass  finally  settled 
on  the  night  of  the  landslip,  the  corpse  had  fallen  immedi- 
ately beneath  it,  and  was  buried  under  the  main  mass.  Yet, 
from  what  I  had  seen  of  the  corpse's  position,  in  the  rapid 
view  I  had  of  it,  perched  on  the  upright  mass  of  sward,  I 
did  not  understand  how  this  could  be. 

And  so  anxiety  after  anxiety  delayed  my  progress.  Still, 
on  the  whole,  I  felt  that  the  body  would  not  now  be  dis- 
lodged by  the  tides,  and  that  Winifred  would  at  least  be 
spared  a  misery  compared  with  which  even  her  uncertainty 
about  her  father's  fate  would  be  bearable.  But  how  I  longed 
to  be  up  and  with  her! 

Dr.  Mivart,  who  attended  me,  a  young  medical  man  of 
nuich  ability  who  had  finished  his  medical  education  in 
Paris,  and  had  lately  settled  at  Raxton,  came  every  day  with 
great  punctuality. 

One  day,  however,  he  arrived  three  hours  behind  his  usual 
time,  and  seemed  to  think  that  some  explanation  was  neces- 
sary. 

'T  must  apologise,"  said  he,  "for  my  unpunctuality  to- 
day, but  the  fact  is  that,  at  the  very  moment  of  starting,  I 
was  delayed  by  one  of  the  most  interesting — one  of  the 
most  extraordinary  cases  that  ever  came  within  my  experi- 
ence, even  at  the  Salpetriere  Hospital,  where  we  were  familiar 
with  the  most  marvellous  cases  of  hysteria — a  seizure 
brought  on  by  terror  in  which  the  subject's  countenance 
mimics  the  appearance  of  the  terrible  object  that  has  caused 


114  Aylwin 

it.  A  truly  wonderful  case!  I  have  just  written  to  Marini 
about  it."  " 

He  seemed  so  much  interested  in  his  case,  that  he  aroused 
a  certain  interest  in  me,  though  at  that  time  the  word  "hys- 
teria" conveyed  an  impression  to  me  of  a  very  uncertain  and 
misty  kind. 

"Where  did  it  occur?"  I  asked. 

"Here  in  your  own  town,"  said  Mivart.  "A  most  extraor- 
dinary case.  My  report  will  delight  Marini,  our  great  au- 
thority, as  you  no  doubt  are  aware,  on  catalepsy  and  cata- 
leptic ecstasy." 

"Strange  that  I  have  heard  nothing  of  it!"  I  said. 

"Oh!"  replied  Mivart,  "it  occurred  only  this  morning. 
Some  fishermen  passing  below  the  old  church  were  at- 
tracted, first  by  a  shriek  of  a  peculiarly  frightful  and  un- 
earthly kind,  and  then  by  some  unusual  appearance  on  the 
sands,  at  the  spot  where  the  last  landslip  took  place." 

My  pulses  stopped  in  a  moment,  and  I  clung  to  the  back 
of  my  chair. 

"What — did — the  fishermen  see?"  I  gasped. 

"The  men  landed,"  continued  Mivart, — too  much  inter- 
ested in  the  case  to  observe  my  emotion, — "and  there  they 
found  a  dead  body — the  body  of  the  missing  organist  here, 
who  had  apparently  fallen  with  the  landslip.  The  face  was 
horribly  distorted  by  terror,  the  skull  shattered,  and  around 
the  neck  was  slung' a  valuable  cross  made  of  precious  stones. 
But  the  most  interesting  feature  of  the  case  is  this,  that  in 
front  of  the  body,  in  a  fit  of  a  remarkable  kind,  squatted 
his  daughter — you  may  have  seen  her,  an  exceedingly  pretty 
girl  lately  come  from  Wales  or  somewhere — and  on  her  face 
was  reflected  and  mimicked,  in  the  most  astonishing  way, 
the  horrible  expression  on  the  face  of  the  corpse,  while  the 
fingers  of  her  right  hand  were  so  closely  locked  around  the 
cross " 

I  felt  that  from  my  mouth  there  issued  a  voice  not  mine — 
a  long  smothered  shriek  like  that  which  had  seemed  to  issue 
from  my  mouth  on  that  awful  night  when,  looking  out  of 
the  window,  I  had  heard  the  noise  of  the  landslip.  Then  I  felt 
myself  whispering  "The  Curse!"   Then  I  knew  no  more. 


The  Moonlight  Cross  of  the  Gnostics     1 1 5 


XIII. 

I  HAD  another  dang-erous  relapse,  and  was  delirious  for  two 
days,  I  think.  When  I  came  to  myself,  the  first  words  I 
uttered  to  Mivart,  whom  I  found  with  me,  were  inquiries 
about  Winifred.  He  was  loth  at  first  to  revive  the  subject, 
though  he  supposed  that  the  eflfect  of  his  narrative  upon  me 
had  arisen  partly  from  my  weakness  and  partly  from  what 
he  called  his  "sensational  way"  of  telling  the  story.  (My 
mother  had  been  very  careful  to  drop  no  hint  of  the  true 
state  of  the  case.)  At  last,  however,  Mivart  told  me  all  he 
knew  about  Winifred,  while  I  hid  my  face  in  my  pillow  and 
listened.  '  ^  "^ 

"In  the  seizures  (which  are  recurrent)  the  girl,"  he  said, 
"mimics  the  expression  of  terror  on  her  father's  face.  Be- 
tween the  paroxysms  she  lapses  into  a  strange  kind  of  de- 
mentia. It  is  as  though  her  own  mind  had  fled  and  the 
body  had  been  entered  by  the  soul  of  a  child.  She  will 
then  sing  snatches  of  songs,  sometimes  in  Welsh  and  some- 
times in  English,  but  with  the  strange,  weird  intonation  of 
a  person  in  a  dream.  I  have  known  something  like  this  to 
take  place  before,  but  it  has  been  in  seizures  of  an  epileptic 
kind,  very  unlike  this  case  in  their  general  characteristics. 
The  mental  processes  seem  to  have  been  completely  ar- 
rested by  the  shock,  as  the  wheels  of  a  watch  or  a  musical 
box  are  stopped  if  it  falls." 

He  could  tell  me  nothing  about  her,  he  said,  nor  what  had 
become  of  her  since  she  had  left  his  hands. 

"The  parish  oflficer  is  taking  his  holiday,"  he  added.  "I 
mean  to  inquire  about  her.  I  wish  I  could  take  her  to  Paris 
to  the  Salpetriere,  where  Marini  is  treating-  such  cases  by 
transmitting  through  magnetism  the  patient's  seizure  to  a 
healthy  subject."  ' 

"Will  she  recover?" 

"Without  the  Salpetriere  treatment?" 

"Will  she  recover?"  I  asked,  maddened  beyond  endurance 
by  all  this  cold-blooded  professional  enthusiasm  about  a 
case  which  to  me  was  simply  a  case  of  life  and  death  to 
Winnie  and  me. 

"She  may,  unless  the  seizures  become  too  frequent  for 


Ii6  Aylwin 

the  strength  of  the  constitution.  In  that  event,  of  course, 
she  would  succumb.  She  is  entirely  harmless,  let  me  tell 
you." 

He  told  me  that  she  was  at  the  cottage,  where  some  good 
soul  was  seeing  after  her. 

"I  will  get  up,"  I  said,  trying  to  rise. 

"Get  up!"  said  the  doctor,  astonished;  "why  do  you  want 
to  get  up  ?    You  are  not  strong  enough  to  sit  in  a  chair  yet." 

This  was,  alas!  but  too  true,  and  my  great  object  now  was 
to  conceal  my  weakness;  for  I  determined  to  get  out  as  soon 
as  my  legs  could  carry  me,  though  I  should  drop  down  dead 
on  the  road. 

I  gathered  from  the  doctor  and  the  servants  that  the 
sacrilege  had  now  become  publicly  known,  and  had  caused 
much  excitement.  Wynne  had  evidently  been  slightly  in- 
toxicated when  he  committed  it,  and  had  taken  no  care  to 
conceal  the  proofs  that  the  grave  had  been  tampered  with. 
At  the  inquest  the  amulet  had  been  identified  and  claimed 
by  my  mother. 

It  was  some  days  before  I  got  out,  and  then  I  went  at 
once  to  the  cottage.  It  was  a  lovely  evening  as  I  walked 
down  Wilderness  Road.  It  was  not  till  I  reached  the  little 
garden-gate  that  I  began  fully  to  feel  how  weak  my  illness 
had  left  m.e.  The  gate  was  half  open,  and  I  looked  over 
into  the  garden,  which  was  already  forlorn  and  deserted. 
Some  instinct  told  m.e  she  was  not  there.  The  little  flower- 
beds looked  shaggy,  grass-grown,  and  uncared  for.  In  the 
centre,  among  the  geraniums,  phlox-beds,  and  French  mari- 
golds, sat  a  dirty-white  hen,  clucking  and  calling  a  brood  of 
dirty-white  chickens.  The  box-bordered  gravelled  paths, 
which  Wynne,  in  spite  of  his  drunkenness,  used  to  keep  al- 
ways so  neat,  were  covered  with  leaves,  shaken  by  the  wind 
from  the  trees  surrounding  the  garden.  One  of  the  dark 
green  shutters  was  unfastened,  and  stood  out  at  right-angles 
from  the  wall — a  token  of  desertion.  On  the  diamond  panes 
of  the  upper  windows,  round  which  the  long  tendrils  of 
grape-vines  were  drooping,  the  gorgeous  sunset  was  re- 
flected, making  the  glass  gleam  as  though  a  hundred  little 
fires  were  playing  behind  it.  When  I  reached  the  door,  the 
paint  of  which  seemed  far  more  cracked  with  the  sun  than  it 
liad  looked  a  few  weeks  before,  I  found  on  knocking  that 
ihc  cottage  was  empty.  I  did  not  linger,  but  went  at  once 
inU)  the  town  to  inquire  about  her. 


The  Moonlight  Cross  of  the  Gnostics     1 1 7 

In  place  of  giving  me  the  information  I  was  panting  for, 
the  whole  town  came  cackling  round  me  with  comments 
on  the  organist  and  the  sacrilege.  I  turned  into  the  "Fish- 
ing Smack"  inn,  a  likely  place  to  get  what  news  was  to  be 
had,  and  found  the  asthmatical  old  landlord  haranguing 
some  fishermen  who  were  drinking  their  ale  on  a  settle. 

"It's  my  b'lief,"  said  the  old  man,  "that  Tom  was  arter 
somethink  else  besides  that  air  jewelled  cross.  I'm  eighty- 
five  year  old  come  next  Dullingham  fair,  and  I  regleck  as 
well  as  if  it  wur  yisterdy  when  resurrectionin'o'  carpuses  wur 
carried  on  in  the  old  churchyard  jes'  like  one  o'clock,  and 
the  carpuses  sent  up  to  Lunnon  reg'lar,  and  it's  my  'pinion 
as  that  wur  part  o'  Tom's  game,  dang  'im;  and  if  I'd  a  'ad 
my  way  arter  the  crouner's  quest,  he'd  never  a'  bin  buried 
in  the  very  churchyard  as  he  went  and  blast-phemed." 

"Where  would  you  'a  buried  'im,  then.  Muster  Lantuflf?" 
asked  a  fisher-boy  in  a  blue  worsted  jerkin. 

"Buried  'im?  why,  at  the  cross-ruds,  with  a  hedge-stake 
through  his  guts,  to  be  sure.  If  there's  a  penny  agin'  'im  on 
that  air  slate"  (pointing  to  a  slate  hung  up  on  the  door) 
"there  must  be  ten  shillins,  dang  'im." 

"You  blear-eyed,  ignorant  old  donkey,"  I  cried,  coming 
fiddenly  upon  him,  "what  do  you  suppose  he  could  have 
done  with  a  dead  body  in  these  days  ?  Here's  your  wretched 
ten  shillings, — for  which  you'd  sell  all  the  corpses  in  Raxton 
churchyard." 

And  I  gave  him  half-a-sovereign,  feeling,  somehow,  that  I 
was  doing  honour  to  Winifred. 

"Thankee  for  the  money,  Mister  Hal,  anyhow,"  said  the 
old  creature.  "You  was  alius  a  liberal  'un,  you  was.  But  as 
to  what  Tom  could  'a  dun  with  the  carpus,  I'm  alius  heer'd 
that  you  may  dew  anythink  ivith  anythink,  if  you  on'y  send 
it  carriage-paid  to  Lunnon." 

I  left  the  house  in  anger  and  disgust.  No  tidings  could  I 
get  of  Winifred  in  Raxton  or  Graylingham. 

By  this  time  I  was  thoroughly  worn  out,  and  obliged  to  go 
home.  My  anxiety  had  become  nearly  insupportable.  All 
night  I  walked  up  and  down  my  bedroom,  like  a  caged 
animal,  cursing  Superstition,  cursing  Convention,  and  all 
the  other  follies  that  had  combined  to  destroy  her.  It  was 
not  till  the  next  day  that  the  true  state  of  the  case  was  made 
known  to  me  in  the  following  manner:  At  the  end  of  the 
town  lived  the  widow  of  Shales,  the  tailor.    Winifred  and  I 


1 1 8  Aylwin 

had  often,  in  our  childish  days,  stood  and  watched  old 
Shales,  sitting  cross-legged  on  a  board  in  the  window,  at 
his  work,  when  Winifred  would  whisper  to  me,  "How  nice 
it  must  be  to  be  a  tailor!" 

As  I  passed  this  shop  I  now  saw  that  on  the  same  board 
was  sitting  a  person  in  whom  Winifred  had  taken  a  still 
stronger  interest.  This  was  a  diminutive  imitation  of  the 
deceased,  in  the  person  of  his  hump-backed  son,  a^ittle  man 
of  about  twenty-four,  who  might,  as  far  as  appearance  went, 
have  been  any  age  from  twenty  to  eighty,  with  a  pale 
anxious  face  like  his  mother's.  He  was  stitching  at  a  coat 
with,  apparently,  the  same  pair  of  scissors  by  his  side  that 
used  to  delight  us  two  children.  Standing  by  the  side  of 
the  board,  and  looking  on  with  a  skilled  intelligence  shining 
from,  her  pale  eyes,  was  Mrs.  Shales,  with  an  infant  in  her 
arms — a  wasted  little  grandchild  wrapped  in  a  plaid  shawl, 
apparently  smoking  a  chibouque,  but  in  reality  sucking  vig- 
orously at  the  mouthpiece  of  a  baby's  bottle,  which  it  was 
clasping  deftly  with  its  pink  little  fingers. 

Mrs.  Shales  beckoned  me  mysteriously  into  her  shop,  and 
then  into  the  little  parlour  behind  it,  where  she  used  to  sit 
and  watch  the  customers  through  the  green  muslin  blind  of 
the  glass  door,  like  a  spider  in  its  web.  Young  Shales,  who 
left  his  board,  followed  us,  and  they  then  gave  me  some  news 
that  at  once  decided  my  course  of  action.  They  told  me 
that  one  morning,  after  her  frightful  shock,  Winifred  had 
encountered  Shales,  who  was  taking  a  holiday,  and  employ- 
ing it  in  catching  young  crabs  among  the  stones.  Winifred, 
who  had  a  great  liking  for  the  humpbacked  tailor,  had  come 
up  to  him  and  talked  in  a  dazed  way.  Shales,  pitying  her 
condition,  had  induced  her  to  go  home  with  him;  and  then 
it  had  occurred  to  him  to  go  and  inquire  at  the  Hall  what 
suggestion  could  be  made  concerning  her  at  a  house  where 
her  father  had  been  so  well  known.  He  could  not  see  me; 
I  was  ill  in  bed.  He  saw  my  mother,  who  at  once  suggested 
that  Winifred  should  be  taken  to  Wales,  to  an  aunt  with 
whom,  according  to  Wynne,  she  had  been  living.  (No  one 
but  myself  knew  anything  of  Wynne's  aflfairs,  and  my 
mother,  though  she  had  heard  of  the  aunt,  had  not,  as  I  then 
believed,  heard  of  her  death.)  She  proposed  that  Shales  him- 
self should  contrive  to  take  Winifred  to  Wales.  "She  had 
reasons,"  she  said,  "for  wishing  that  Winifred  should  not  be 
handed  over  to  the  local  parish  officer."    She  oflfered  to  pay 


The  Moonlight  Cross  of  the  Gnostics     119 

Shales  liberally  for  going.  /,  however,  was  to  know  nothing 
of  this.  Her  object,  of  course,  was  to  get  Winifred  out  of 
my  way.  The  aunt's  address  was  furnished  by  a  Mr.  Lacon 
of  DuUingham,  an  old  friend  of  Wynne's,  who  also,  it  seems, 
was  ignorant  of  the  aunt's  death.  This  aunt,  a  sister  of 
Winifred's  mother,  named  Davies,  the  widow  of  a  sea  cap- 
tain who  had  once  known  better  days,  resided  in  an  old  cot- 
tage between  Bettws  y  Coed  and  Capel  Curig.  Shales  had 
found  no  difficulty  in  persuading  Winifred  to  go  with  him, 
for  she  had  now  sunk  into  a  condition  of  dazed  stupor,  and 
was  very  docile. 

They  started  on  their  long  journey  across  England  by  rail, 
and  everything  went  well  until  they  got  into  Wales,  when 
Winifred's  stupor  seemed  to  be  broken  into  by  the  familiar 
scenery;  her  wits  became  alive  again.  Then  an  idea  seemed 
to  seize  her  that  she  was  pursued  by  me,  as  the  messenger 
bearing  my  dead  father's  curse.  The  appearance  of  any 
young  man  bearing  the  remotest  resemblance  to  me  fright- 
ened her.  At  last,  before  they  reached  Bettws  y  Coed,  she 
had  escaped,  and  was  lost  among  the  woods.  Shales  had 
made  every  efifort  to  find  her,  but  without  avail,  and  was 
compelled  at  last,  by  the  demands  of  his  business,  to  give  up 
the  quest.  He  had  returned  on  the  previous  evening,  and 
my  mother  had  enjoined  him  not  to  tell  me  what  had  been 
done,  though  she  seemed  much  distressed  at  hearing  that 
Winnie  was  lost,  and  was  about  to  send  others  into  Wales 
in  order  to  find  her,  if  possible.  Shales,  however,  had  de- 
termined to  tell  me,  as  the  matter,  he  said,  lay  upon  his 
conscience. 

On  getting  this  news  I  went  straight  home,  ordered  a 
portmanteau  to  be  packed,  and  placed  in  it  all  my  ready 
cash.  Before  starting  I  sat  down  to  write  a  letter  to  my 
uncle.  On  hearing  of  my  movements,  my  mother  came  to 
me  in  great  agitation.  In  her  eyes  there  was  that  haggard 
expression  which  I  thought  I  understood.  Already  she  had 
begun  to  feel  that  she  and  she  alone  was  responsible  for  what- 
soever calamities  might  fall  upon  the  helpless  deserted  girl 
she  had  sent  away.  Already  she  had  begun  to  feel  the  pangs 
of  that  remorse  which  afterwards  stung  her  so  cruelly  that 
not  all  Winnie's  woes,  nor  all  mine,  were  so  dire  as  hers. 
There  are  some  natures  that  feel  themselves  responsible  for 
all  the  unforeseen,  as  well  as  for  all  the  foreseen,  conse- 
quences of  their  acts.    My  mother  was  one  of  these.    I  rose 


1 20  Aylwin 


as  she  entered,  offered  her  a  seat,  and  then  sat  down  again. 
She  inquired  whither  I  was  going-. 

"To  North  Wales,"  I  said. 

She  stood  aghast.  But  she  now  understood  that  grief 
had  made  me  a  man. 

"You  are  going,"  said  she,  "after  the  daughter  of  the 
scoundrel  who  desecrated  your  father's  tomb." 

"I  am  going  after  the  young  lady  whom  I  intend  to 
marry." 

"Wynne's  daughter  marry  my  only  son!    Never!" 

I  proceeded  with  my  letter. 

"I  will  write  to  your  uncle  Aylwin  at  once.  I  will  tell 
him  you  are  going  to  marry  that  miscreant's  daughter,  and 
he  will  disinherit  you." 

"In  that  case,  mother,"  I  said,  rising  from  the  table,  "I 
need  not  trouble  myself  to  finish  my  letter;  for  I  was  writ- 
ing to  him,  telling  him  the  same  thing.  Still,  perhaps  I  had 
better  send  mine  too,"  I  continued.  "I  should  like  at  least 
to  remain  on  friendly  terms  with  him,  he  is  so  good  to  me;" 
and  I  resumed  my  seat  at  the  writing-table. 

"Henry,"  said  my  mother,  after  a  second  or  two,  "I  think 
you  had  better  not  write  to  your  uncle;  it  might  only  make 
matters  worse.    You  had  better  leave  it  to  me." 

"Thank  you,  mother,  the  letter  is  finished,"  I  replied  as  I 
sealed  it  up,  "and  will  be  sent.  Good-bye,  dear,"  I  said, 
taking  her  hand  and  kissing  it.  "You  knew  not  what  you 
did,  and  I  know  you  did  it  for  the  best." 

"When  do  you  return,  Henry?"  asked  she,  in  a  conquered 
and  sad  tone,  that  caused  me  many  a  pang  to  remember 
afterwards. 

"That  is  altogether  uncertain,"  I  answered.  "I  go  to  fol- 
low Winifred.  If  I  find  her  alive  I  shall  marry  her,  if  she 
will  marry  me,  unless  permanent  insanity  prove  a  barrier. 
If  she  is  dead" — (I  restrained  myself  from  saying  aloud  what 
I  said  to  myself) — "I  shall  still  follow  her." 

"The  daughter  of  the  scoundrel!"  she  murmured,  her 
lips  grey  with  suppressed  passion. 

"Mother,"  I  said,  "let  us  not  part  in  anger.  The  sword  of 
Fate  is  between  us.  When  I  was  at  school  I  made  a  certain 
vow.  The  vow  was  that  I  would  woo  and  win  but  one 
woman  upon  earth — the  daughter  of  the  man  who  has  since 
violated  my  father's  tomb.  I  have  lately  made  a  second 
vow,  that,  until  she  is  found,  I  shall  devote  my  life  to  the 


The  Moonlight  Cross  of  the  Gnostics     121 

quest  of  Winifred  Wynne.  If  you  think  that  I  am  likely  to 
be  deterred  by  fears  of  being  disinherited  by  your  family, 
open  and  read  my  letter  to  my  uncle.  I  have  there  told  him 
whom  I  intend  to  marry." 

"Mad,  mad  boy!"  said  my  mother.    "Society  will " 

"You  have  once  or  twice  before  mentioned  society, 
mother.  If  I  find  Winifred  Wynne,  I  shall  assuredly  marry 
her,  unless  prevented  by  the  one  obstacle  I  have  mentioned. 
If  I  marry  her  I  shall,  if  it  so  please  me  and  her,  take  her 
into  society." 

"Into  society!"  she  replied,  with  ineffable  scorn. 

"And  I  shall  say  to  society,  'Here  is  my  wife.'  " 

"And  when  society  asks  who  is  your  wife?" 

"I  shall  reply,  'She  is  the  daughter  of  the  drunken  or- 
ganist who  desecrated  my  father's  tomb,  though  that  con- 
cerns you  not: — her  own  specialty,  as  you  see,  is  that  she  is 
the  flower  of  all  girlhood.'  " 

"And  when  society  rejects  this  earthly  paragon?" 

"Then  I  shall  reject  society." 

"Reject  society,  boy!"  said  my  mother.  "Why,  Cyril  Ayl- 
win  himself,  the  bohemian  painter  who  has  done  his  best  to 
cheapen  and  vulgarise  our  name,  is  not  a  more  reckless, 
lawless  leveller  than  you.  And,  good  heavens!  to  him,  and 
perhaps  afterwards  to  you,  will  come — the  coronet." 

And  she  left  the  room. 


III. 


Winifred's   Dukkeripen 


III.— WINIFRED'S  DUKKERIPEN 


I. 

I  NEED  not  describe  my  journey  to  North  Wales.  On  reach- 
ing Bettws  y  Coed  I  turned  into  the  hotel  there — "The 
Royal  Oak" — famished;  for,  as  fast  as  trains  could  carry  me, 
I  had  travelled  right  across  England,  leaving  rest  and  meals 
to  chance.  I  found  the  hotel  full  of  English  painters,  whom 
the  fine  summer  had  attracted  thither  as  usual.  The  land- 
lord got  me  a  bed  in  the  village.  A  six-o'clock  table  d'hote 
was  going  on  when  I  arrived,  and  I  joined  it.  Save  myself, 
the  guests  were,  I  think,  landscape  painters  to  a  man.  They 
had  been  sketching  in  the  neighbourhood.  I  thought  I  had 
never  met  so  genial  and  good-natured  a  set  of  men,  and  I 
have  since  often  wondered  what  they  thought  of  me,  who 
met  such  courteous  and  friendly  advances  as  they  made 
towards  me  in  a  temper  that  must  have  seemed  to  them  mo- 
rose or  churlish  and  stupid.  Before  the  dinner  was  over 
another  tourist  entered — a  fresh-complexioned  young  Eng- 
lishman in  spectacles,  who,  sitting  next  to  me,  did  at  length, 
by  force  of  sheer  good  humour,  contrive  to  get  into  a  desul- 
tory kind  of  conversation  with  me,  and,  as  far  as  I  remem- 
ber, he  talked  well.  He  was  not  an  artist,  I  found,  but  an 
amateur  geologist  and  antiquary.  His  hobby  was  not  like 
that  fatal  antiquarianism  of  my  father's,  which  had  worked 
so  much  mischief,  but  the  harmless  quest  of  flint  imple- 
ments. His  talk  about  his  collection  of  flints,  however,  sent 
my  mind  off  to  Flinty  Point  and  the  never-to-be-forgotten 
flint-built  walls  of  Raxton  church.  After  dinner,  coflfee, 
liquors  and  tobacco  being  introduced  into  the  dining-room, 
I  got  up,  intending  to  roam  about  outside  the  hotel  till  bed- 
time; but  the  rain,  I  found,  was  falling  in  torrents.  I  was 
compelled  to  return  to  my  friend  of  the  "flints."  At  that 
moment  one  of  the  artists  plunged  into  a  comic  song,  and 


126  Aylwin 

by  the  ecstatic  look  of  the  company  I  knew  that  a  purga- 
torial time  was  before  me.  I  resigned  myself  to  my  fate. 
Song  followed  song,  until  at  last  even  my  friend  of  the  flints 
struck  up  the  ballad  of  Little  Billee,  whose  lugubrious  refrain 
seemed  to  "set  the  table  in  a  roar";  but  to  me  it  will  always 
be  associated  with  sickening  heart-ache. 

As  soon  as  the  rain  ceased  I  left  the  hotel  and  went  to  the 
room  in  the  little  town  the  landlord  had  engaged  for  me. 
There,  with  the  roar  in  my  ears  of  the  mountain  streams 
(swollen  by  the  rains),  I  went  to  bed  and,  strange  to  say, 
slept. 

Next  morning  I  rose  early,  breakfasted  at  "The  Royal 
Oak"  as  soon  as  I  could  get  attended  to,  and  proceeded  in 
the  direction  in  which,  according  to  what  I  had  gathered 
from  various  sources,  Mrs.  Davies  had  lived.  This  led  me 
through  a  valley  and  by  the  side  of  a  stream,  whose  cas- 
cades I  succeeded,  after  many  efforts,  in  crossing.  After  a 
while,  however,  I  found  that  I  had  taken  a  wrong  track,  and 
was  soon  walking  in  the  contrary  direction.  I  will  not  de- 
scribe that  long  dreary  walk  in  a  drenching  rain,  with  noth- 
ing but  the  base  of  the  mountain  visible,  all  else  being  lost  in 
clouds  and  mist. 

After  blundering  through  marshy  and  boggy  hillocks  for 
miles,  I  found  myself  at  last  in  the  locality  indicated  to  me. 
Arriving  at  a  roadside  public-house,  I  entered  it,  and  on  in- 
quiry was  vexed  to  find  that  I  had  again  been  misdirected. 
I  slept  there,  and  in  the  morning  started  again  on  my  quest. 
I  was  now  a  long  way  off  my  destination,  but  had  at  least 
the  satisfaction  of  knowing  that  I  was  on  the  right  road  at 
last.  In  the  afternoon  I  reached  another  wayside  inn,  very 
similar  to  that  in  which  I  had  slept.  I  walked  up  at  once 
to  the  landlord  (a  fat  little  Englishman  who  looked  like  a 
Welshman,  with  black  eyes  and  a  head  of  hair  like  a  black 
door-mat),  and  asked  him  if  he  had  known  Mrs.  Davies.  He 
said  he  had,  but  seemed  anxious  to  assure  me  that  he  was 
a  Chester  man  and  "not  a  TaiTy."  She  had  died,  he  told  me, 
not  long  since.  But  he  had  known  more  of  her  niece,  Wini- 
fred Wynne  (or,  as  most  people  called  her,  Winifred 
Davies);  for,  said  he,  "she  was  a  queer  kind  of  outdoor 
creature  that  everybody  knew, — as  fond  of  the  rain  and  mist 
as  sensible  folk  are  fond  of  sunshine." 

"Where  did  she  live?"  I  inquired. 

"You  must  have  passed  the  very  door,"  said  the  man. 


Winifred's  Dukkeripen  i  27 

And  then  he  indicated  a  pretty  little  cottage  by  the  roadside 
which  I  had  passed,  not  far  from  the  lake.  Airs.  Davics  (he 
told  me)  had  lived  there  with  her  niece  till  the  aunt  died. 

"Then  you  knew  Winifred  Wynne?"  I  said.  There  was  to 
me  a  romantic  kind  of  interest  about  a  man  who  had  seen 
Winifred  in  Wales. 

"Knew  her  well,"  said  he.  "She  was  a  Carnarvon  gal — 
tremenjus  fond  o'  the  sea — and  a  rare  pretty  gal  she  was." 

"Pretty  gal  she  is,  you  might  ha'  said,  Mr.  Blyth,"  a 
woman's  voice  exclaimed  from  the  settle  beneath  the  win- 
dow. "She's  about  in  these  parts  at  this  very  moment, 
though  Jim  Burton  says  it's  her  ghose.  But  do  ghoses  eat 
and  drink?  that's  what  /  want  to  know.  Besides,  if  any- 
body's like  to  know  the  difference  between  Winnie  Wynne 
and  Winnie  Wynne's  ghose,  I  should  say  it's  most  likely 
me. 

I  turned  round.  A  Gypsy  girl,  dressed  in  fine  Gypsy  cos- 
tume, very  dark  but  very  handsome,  was  sitting  on  a  settle 
drinking  from  a  pot  of  ale,  and  nursing  an  instrument  of 
the  violin  kind,  which  she  was  fondling  as  though  it  were 
a  baby.  She  was  quite  young,  not  above  eighteen  years  of 
age,  slender,  graceful — remarkably  so,  even  for  a  Gypsy  girl. 
Her  hair,  which  was  not  so  much  coal-black  as  blue-black, 
was  plaited  in  the  old-fashioned  Gypsy  way,  in  little  plaits 
that  looked  almost  as  close  as  plaited  straw,  and  as  it  was 
of  an  unusually  soft  and  fine  texture  for  a  Gypsy,  the  plaits 
gave  it  a  lustre  quite  unlike  that  which  unguents  can  give. 
As  she  sat  there,  one  leg  thrown  over  the  other,  displaying 
a  foot  which,  even  in  the  heavy  nailed  boots,  would  have 
put  to  shame  the  finest  foot  of  the  finest  English  lady  I  have 
ever  seen,  I  could  discern  that  she  was  powerful  and  tall; 
her  bosom,  gently  rising  and  falling  beneath  the  layers  of 
scarlet  and  yellow  and  blue  handkerchiefs,  which  filled  up 
the  space  the  loose-fitting  gown  of  bright  merino  left  open, 
was  of  a  breadth  fully  worthy  of  her  height.  A  silk  hand- 
kerchief of  deep  blood-red  colour  was  bound  round  her 
head,  not  in  the  modern  Gypsy  fashion,  but  more  like  an 
Oriental  turban.  From  each  ear  was  suspended  a  massive 
ring  of  red  gold.  Round  her  beautiful,  towering,  tanned 
neck  was  a  thrice-twisted  necklace  of  half-sovereigns  and 
amber  and  red  coral.  She  looked  me  full  in  the  face.  Then 
came  a  something  in  the  girl's  eyes  the  like  of  which  I  had 
seen  in  no  other  Gypsy's  eyes,  though  I  had  known  well  the 


128  Aylwin 

Gypsies  who  used  to  camp  near  Rington  Manor,  not  far 
from  Raxton,  for  my  kinsman,  Percy  Aylwin,  the  poet,  had 
lately  fallen  in  love  with  Winnie's  early  friend,  Rhona  Bos- 
well.  It  was  not  exactly  an  "uncanny"  expression,  yet  it 
suggested  a  world  quite  other  than  this.  It  was  an  expres- 
sion such  as  one  might  expect  to  see  in  a  "budding  spae- 
wife,"  or  in  a  Roman  Sibyl.  And  whose  expression  was  it 
that  it  now  reminded  me  of?  But  the  remarkable  thing  was 
that  this  expression  was  intermittent;  it  came  and  went  like 
the  shadows  the  fleeting  clouds  cast  along  the  sunlit  grass. 
Then  it  was  followed  by  a  look  of  steady  self-reliance  and 
daring.  The  last  variation  of  expression  was  what  now  sud- 
denly came  into  her  eyes  as  she  said,  scrutinising  me  from 
head  to  foot: 

"Reia,  you  make  a  good  git-up  for  a  Romany-chal.  Can 
you  rokkra  Romanes?  No,  I  see  you  can't.  I  should  ha' 
took  you  for  the  right  sort.  I  should  ha'  begun  the  Romany 
rokkerpen  with  you,  only  you  ain't  got  the  Romany  glime  in 
your  eyes.  It's  a  pity  he  ain't  got  the  Romany  glime,  ain't 
it,  Jim?" 

She  turned  to  a  young  Gypsy  fellow  who  was  sitting  at  the 
other  end  of  the  settle,  drinking  also  from  a  pot  of  ale,  and 
smoking  a  cutty  pipe. 

"Don't  ax  me  about  no  mumply  Gorgio's  eyes,"  muttered 
the  man,  striking  the  leather  legging  of  his  right  leg  with  a 
silver-headed  whip  he  carried.  "You're  alius  a-takin'  intrust 
in  the  Gorgios,  and  yet  you're  'alius  a-makin'  believe  as  you 
hate  'em." 

"You  say  Winifred  Wynne  is  back  again?"  I  cried  in  an 
eager  voice. 

"That's  just  what  I  did  say,  and  I  ain't  deaf,  my  rei.  How 
she  managed  to  get  back  here  puzzles  me,  poor  thing,  for 
she's  jist  for  all  the  world  like  Rhona's  daddy's  daddy,  Opi 
Bozzell,  what  buried  his  wits  in  his  dead  wife's  coffin.  She's 
even  skeared  at  me." 

"Why,  you  don't  mean  to  say  Winnie's  back!"  cried  the 
landlord.  "To  think  that  I  shouldn't  have  heard  about 
Winnie  Wynne  bein'  back.    When  did  you  see  her,  Sinfi?" 

"I  see  her  fust  ever  so  many  nights  ago.  I  was  comin' 
down  this  road,  when  what  do  I  see  but  a  gal  a-kickin'  at 
the  door  of  Mrs.  Davies'semp'y  house,  and  a-sobbin'  shewas 
jist  fit  to  break  her  heart,  and  I  sez  to  myself,  as  I  looked 
at  her — 'Now,  if  it  was  possible  for  that  'ere  gal  to  be  Wini- 


Winifred's  Dukkeripen  i  29 

fred  Wynne,  she'd  be  Winifred  Wynne,  but  as  it  ain't  possi- 
ble for  her  to  be  Winifred  Wynne,  it  ain't  Winifred  Wynne, 
and  any  mumply  Gorgie*  as  ain't  Winifred  Wynne  may  kick 
and  sob  for  a  blue  moon  for  all  me.'  " 

"But  it  ivas  Winnie  Wynne,  I  s'pose?"  said  the  landlord, 
in  a  state  now  of  great  curiosity. 

"It  zvas  Winnie  Wynne,"  replied  the  Gypsy,  handing  her 
companion  her  empty  beer-pot,  and  pointing  to  the  landlord 
as  a  sign  that  the  man  was  to  pass  it  on  to  him  to  be  refilled. 
"Up  I  goes  to  her  and  I  says,  'Why,  sister,  who's  been 
a-meddlin'  with  you?  I'll  tear  the  windpipe  out  o'  anybody 
wot's  been  a-meddlin'  with  you." 

When  the  girl  used  the  word  "sister"  a  light  broke  in 
upon  me. 

"Are  you  Sinfi  Lovell?"  I  cried. 

"That's  jist  my  name,  my  rei;  but  as  I  said  afore,  I  ain't 
deaf.  Jist  let  Jim  pass  my  beer  across  and  don't  interrup' 
me,  please." 

"Don't  rile  her,  sir,"  whispered  the  landlord  to  me;  "she's 
got  the  real  witch's  eye,  and  can  do  you  a  mischief  in  a 
twink,  if  she  likes.    She's  a  good  sort,  though,  for  all  that." 

"What  are  you  two  a-whisperin'  about  me?"  said  the  girl 
in  a  menacing  tone  that  seemed  to  alarm  the  landlord. 

"I  was  only  tellin'  the  gentleman  not  to  rile  you,  because 
you  was  a  fightin'  woman,"  said  the  man. 

The  Gypsy  looked  appeased  and  even  gratified  at  the  land- 
lord's explanation. 

"But  what  did  Winnie  Wynne  do  then,  Sinfi?"  asked  the 
landlord. 

"She  turns  round  sharp,"  said  the  Gypsy;  "she  looks  at 
me  as  skeared  as  the  eyes  of  a  hotchiwitchif  as  knows  he's 
a-bein'  uncurled  for  the  knife.  'Father!'  she  cries,  and  away 
she  bolts  like  a  greyhound;  and  I  know'd  at  onst  as  she  wur 
under  a  cuss.  Now,  you  see,  Mr.  Blyth,  that  upset  me,  that 
did,  for  Winnie  Wynne  was  the  only  one  on  'em,  Gorgio  or 
Gorgie,  ever  I  liked.  No  offence,  Mr.  Blyth,  it  isn't  your 
fault  you  was  born  one;  but,"  continued  the  girl,  holding  up 
the  foaming  tankard  and  admiring  the  froth  as  it  dropped 
from  the  rim  upon  her  slender  brown  hand  on  its  way  to  the 
floor,  "Winnie  Wynne  was  the  only  one  on  'em,  Gorgio  or 

*  Gorgio,  a  man  who  is  not  a  Gypsy.     Gorgie,  a  woman  who  is 
not  a  Gypsy. 
tHedgehog. 


130  Aylwin 

Gorgie,  ever  I  liked,  and  that  upset  me,  that  did,  to  see  that 
'ere  beautiful  cretur  a-grinnin'  and  jabberin'  under  a  cuss. 
The  Romanies  is  gittin'  too  fond  by  half  o'  the  Gorgios, 
and  will  soon  be  jist  like  mumply  Gorgios  themselves, 
speckable  and  silly;  but  Gorgio  or  Gorgie,  she  was  the  only 
one  on  'em  ever  I  liked,  was  Winnie  Wynne;  and  when  she 
turned  round  on  me  like  that,  with  them  kind  eyes  o'  hern 
(such  kind  eyes  /  never  seed  afore)  lookin'  like  that  at  me 
(and  I  know'd  she  was  under  a  cuss) — I  tell  you,"  she  said, 
still  addressing  the  beer,  "that  it's  made  me  fret  ever  since^- 
that's  what  it's  done!" 

About  the  truth  of  this  last  statement  there  could  be  no 
doubt,  for  her  face  was  twitching  violently  in  her  efforts  to 
keep  down  her  emotion. 

"And  did  you  follow  her?"  said  the  landlord. 

"Not  I;  what  was  the  good?" 

"But  what  did  you  do,  Sinfi?" 

"What  did  I  do?  Well,  don't  you  mind  me  comin'  here 
one  night  and  buyin'  a  couple  of  blankets  of?  you,  and  some 
bread  and  meat  and  things?" 

"In  course  I  do,  Sinfi,  and  you  said  you  wanted  them  for 
the  vans." 

The  Gypsy  smiled  and  said,  'T  knovved  she  was  bound  to 
come  back,  so  I  pulls  up  the  window  and  in  I  gets,  and 
then  opens  the  door  and  off  I  comes  to  you,  as  bein'  the 
nearest  neighbour,  for  the  blankets  and  things,  and  I  puts 
'em  in  the  house,  and  I  leaves  the  door  uncatched,  and  I 
hides  myself  behind  the  house,  and,  sure  enough,  back  she 
comes,  poor  thing!  I  hears  her  kick,  kick,  kickin'  at  the 
door,  and  then  I  hears  her  go  in  when  she  finds  it  give  way. 
So  I  waits  a  good  while,  till  I  think  she's  eat  some  o'  the 
vittles  and  gone  to  sleep  maybe,  and  then  round  the  house  I 
creeps,  and  in  the  door  I  peeps,  and  soon  I  hears  her 
breathin'  soft,  and  then  I  sliuts  the  door  and  goes  away  to 
the  place."* 

"But  why  didn't  you  tell  us  all  this,  Sinfi?"  asked  the  land- 
lord. "My  wife  would  lia'  went  and  seen  arter  her,  and  we 
wouldn't  ha'  touched  a  farthin'  for  the  blankets  and  things, 
not  we,  Sinfi,  not  we." 

"Ah,  you  zcould.  though,"  said  the  girl,  "  'cause  I'd  ha' 
viodc  you  take  it.  Winnie  Wynne  was  the  only  one  on  'cm, 
Gorgio  or  Gorgie,  ever  I  liked,  and  nobody's  got  no  right  to 
*Camping-place. 


Winifred's   Dukkeripen  i  3  i 

see  arter  her  only  me,  and  that's  why  I'm  about  here  nozv,  if 
you  must  know;  but  nobody's  got  no  right  to  see  arter  her 
only  me,  and  nobody  sha'n't  nuther.  They  might  go  and 
skear  her  to  run  up  the  hills,  and  she  might  dash  herself  all 
to  flactions  in  no  time." 

"Don't  take  on  so,  Sinfi,"  said  the  landlord.  "When  they 
are  in  that  way  they  alius  turns  agin  them  as  they  was  fond 
on." 

"Then  you  noticed  as  she  was  fond  o'  me,  Mr.  Blyth," 
said  the  girl  with  great  earnestness. 

"Of  course  she  was  fond  of  you,  Sinfi;  every  body  knows 
that." 

"Yes,"  said  the  girl,  now  much  affected,  "every  body 
knowed  it,  every  body  knowed  as  she  was  fond  o'  me.  And 
to  see  her  look  at  me  like  that — it  was  a  cruel  sight,  Mr. 
Blyth,  I  can  tell  you.  Such  a  look  you  never  seed  in  all 
your  life,  Mr.  Blyth." 

"Then  I  take  it  she's  in  the  house  now?"  said  the  landlord. 

"She  goes  prowlin'  about  all  day  among  the  hills,  as  if  she 
was  a-lookin'  for  somebody;  and  she  talks  to  somebody  as 
she  calls  the  Tywysog  o'r  Niwl,  an'  I  know  that's  Welsh  for 
the  'Prince  o'  the  Mist' ;  but  back  she  comes  at  night.  She 
talks  to  herself  a  good  deal ;  and  she  sings  to  herself  the 
Welsh  gillies  what  Mrs.  Davies  larnt  her  in  a  v'ice  as  seems 
as  if  she  wur  a-singin'  in  her  sleep,  but  it's  very  sweet  to  hear 
it.  Yesterday  I  crep'  near  her  wdien  she  was  a-sittin'  down 
lookin'  at  herself  in  that  'ere  llyn  where  the  water's  so  clear, 
'Knockers'  Llyn,'  as  they  calls  it,  where  her  and  me  and 
Rhona  Boswell  used  to  go.  And  I  heard  her  say  she  was 
'cussed  by  Henry's  feyther.'  And  then  I  heard  her  talk  to 
somebody  agin,  as  she  called  the  Prince  of  the  Mist;  but  it's 
herself  as  she's  a-talkin'  to  all  the  while." 

"Cursed  by  Henry's  father!  What  curse  could  any  su- 
perstitious mystic  call  down  upon  the  head  of  Winifred? 
The  heaven  that  would  answer  a  call  of  that  kind  would  be 
a  heaven  for  zanies  and  tom-fools!"  I  shouted,  in  a  paroxysm 
of  rage  against  the  entire  besotted  human  race.  "That  for 
the  curse!"  I  cried,  snapping  my  fingers.  "/  am  Henry,  and 
I  am  come  to  share  the  curse,  if  there  is  one.' 

"Young  man,"  interposed  the  landlord,  "such  blasphee- 
mous  langige  as  that  must  not  be  spoke  here;  I  ain't  a-goin' 
to  have  my  good  beer  turned  to  vinegar  by  blasphemin' 
them  as  owns  the  thunder,  I  can  tell  you." 


132  Aylwin 

But  the  effect  of  my  words  upon  the  Gypsy  was  that  of  a 
spark  in  a  powder-mine. 

"Henry?"  she  said,  "Henry?  are  you  the  fine  rei  as  she 
used  to  talk  about?  Are  you  the  fine  cripple  as  she  was  so 
fond  on?  Yes,  Beng  te  tassa  mandi  if  you  ain't  Henry  his 
very  self." 

"Don't,"  remonstrated  the  landlord,  "don't  meddle  with 
the  gentleman,  Sinfi.    He  ain't  a  cripple,  as  you  can  see." 

"Well,  cripple  or  no  cripple,  he's  Henry.  I  half  thought 
it  as  soon  as  he  began  askin'  about  her.  Now,  my  fine 
Gorgio,  what  do  you  and  your  fine  feyther  mean  by  cussin' 
Winnie  Wynne?  You've  jist  about  broke  her  heart  among 
ye.  If  you  want  to  cuss  you'd  better  cuss  me;"  and  she 
sprang  up  in  an  attitude  that  showed  me  at  once  that  she 
was  a  skilled  boxer. 

The  male  Gypsy  rose  and  buttoned  his  coat  over  his  waist- 
coat. I  thought  he  was  going  to  attack  me.  Instead  of  this, 
he  said  to  the  landlord: 

"She's  in  for  a  set-to  agin.  She's  sure  to  quarrel  with  me 
if  I  interferes,  so  I'll  just  go  on  to  the  place  and  not  spile 
sport.  Don't  let  her  kill  the  chap,  though,  Mr.  Blyth,  if 
you  can  anyways  help  it.  Anyhows,  /  ain't  a-goin'  to  be 
called  in  for  witness." 

With  that  he  left  the  house. 

The  Gypsy  girl  looked  at  me  from  head  to  foot,  and 
exclaimed: 

"Lucky  for  you,  my  fine  fellow,  that  I'm  a  duke's  chavi, 
an'  musn't  fight,  else  I'd  pretty  soon  ask  you  outside  and 
settle  this  off  in  no  time.  But  you'd  better  keep  clear  of 
Mrs.  Davies's  cottage,  I  can  tell  you.  Every  stick  in  that 
house  is  mine." 

And,  forgetting  in  her  rage  to  pay  her  score,  she  picked 
up  her  strange-looking  musical  instrument,  put  it  into  a 
bag,  and  stalked  out. 

"She's  got  a  queer  temper  of  her  own,"  said  the  landlord; 
"but  she  ain't  a  bad  sort  for  all  that.  She's  clever,  too:  she's 
the  only  woman  in  Wales,  they  say,  as  can  play  on  the 
crwth  now  since  Mrs.  Davies  is  dead,  what  larnt  her  to 
do  it." 

"The  crwth?" 

"The  old  ancient  Welsh  fiddle  wliat  can  draw  the  Sperrits 
o'  Snowdon  when  it's  played  by  a  vargin.  I  dessay  you've 
often  heard  the  sayin'  'The  sperrits  follow  the  crwth.'    She 


Winifred's  Dukkeripen  133 

makes  a  sight  o'  money  by  playin'  on  that  fiddle  in  the 
houses  o'  the  gentlefolk,  and  she's  as  proud  as  the  very 
deuce.    Ain't  a  bad  sort,  though,  for  all  that." 


II. 

That  I  determined  to  cultivate  the  acquaintance  of  Sinfi 
Lovell  I  need  scarcely  say.  But  my  first  purpose  was  to  see 
the  cottage.  The  landlord  showed  me  the  way  to  it.  He 
warned  me  that  a  storm  was  coming  on,  but  I  did  not  let 
that  stay  me.  Masses  of  dark  clouds  were  gathering,  and 
there  was  every  sign  of  a  heavy  rain-storm  as  I  went  out 
along  the  road  in  the  direction  indicated. 

There  was  a  damp  boisterous  wind,  that  seemed  blowing 
from  all  points  of  the  compass  at  once,  and  in  a  minute  I 
was  caught  in  a  swirl  of  blinding  rain.  I  took  no  heed  of  it, 
however,  but  hurried  along  the  lonely  road  till  I  reached 
the  cottage,  which  I  knew  at  once  was  the  one  I  sought. 
It  was  picturesque,  but  had  a  deserted  look. 

It  was  not  till  I  stood  in  front  of  the  door  that  I  began  to 
consider  what  I  really  intended  to  do  in  case  I  found  her 
there.  A  heedless  impetuous  desire  to  see  her — to  get  pos- 
session of  her — had  brought  me  to  Wales.  But  what  was 
to  be  my  course  of  action  if  I  found  her  I  had  never  given 
myself  time  to  think. 

If  I  could  only  clasp  her  in  my  arms  and  tell  her  I  was 
Henry,  I  felt  that  she  must,  even  in  madness,  know  me  and 
cling  to  me.  I  could  not  realise  that  any  insanity  could 
estrange  her  from  me  if  I  could  only  get  near  her. 

I  put  my  thumb  upon  the  old-fashioned  latch,  and  found 
that  the  door  was  not  locked.  It  yielded  to  my  touch,  and 
with  a  throbbing  of  every  pulse,  I  pushed  it  open  and 
looked  in. 

In  front  of  me  rose  a  staircase,  steep  and  narrow.  There 
was  sufficient  evening  light  to  enable  me  to  see  up  the  stair- 
case, and  to  distinguish  two  black  bedroom  doors,  now 
closed,  on  the  landing.  I  stood  on  the  wet  threshold  till 
my  nerves  grew  calmer.  On  my  right  and  on  my  left  the 
doors  of  the  two  rooms  on  the  groiuid  floor  were  open.  I 
could  see  that  the  one  on  my  left  was  stripped  of  furniture. 


134  Aylwin 

I  entered  the  room  on  my  right — a  low  room  of  some  con- 
siderable length;  with  heavy  beams  across  the  ceiling,  which 
in  that  light  seemed  black.  Two  or  three  chairs  and  a  table 
were  in  it.  There  was  a  brisk  fire,  and  over  it  a  tea-kettle 
of  the  kind  much  favoured  by  Gypsies,  as  I  afterwards  learnt. 
There  was  no  grate,  but  an  open  hearth,  exactly  like  the 
one  in  Wynne's  cottage,  where  Winifred  and  I  used  to  stand 
in  summer  evenings  to  see  the  sky7  and  the  stars  twinkling 
above  the  great  sooty  throat  of  the  open  chimney.  I  now 
perceived  the  crwth  and  bow  upon  the  table.  Sinfi  Lovell 
had  evidently  been  here  since  we  parted.  On  the  walls 
hung  a  few  of  those  highly  coloured  prints  of  Scriptural 
subjects  which,  at  one  time,  used  to  be  seen  in  English  farm- 
houses, and  are  still  the  only  works  of  art  with  the  Welsh 
peasants  and  a  few  well-to-do  Welsh  Gypsies  who  would 
emulate  Gorgio  tastes. 

On  the  left-hand  side  of  the  room  was  an  arched  recess, 
in  which,  no  doubt,  had  stood  at  one  time  a  sideboard,  or 
some  such  piece  of  furniture.  There  was  no  occupant  of  the 
room,  however,  and  I  grew  calmer  as  I  stood  before  the 
fire,  which  drew  from  my  wet  clothes  a  cloud  of  steam.  The 
ruddy  fingers  of  the  fire-gleam  playing  upon  the  walls  made 
the  colours  of  the  pictures  seem  bright  as  the  tints  of  stained 
glass.  The  pathetic  message  of  those  flickering  rays  flowed 
into  my  soul.  The  red  mantle  of  the  Prodigal  Son,  in  which 
he  was  feeding  the  swine,  shone  as  though  it  had  been 
soaked  in  sorrow  and  blood-red  sin.  The  house  was  ap- 
parently empty;  the  tension  of  my  passion  became  for  the 
first  time  relaxed,  and  I  passed  into  a  strange  mood  of 
pathos,  dreamy,  but  yet  acute,  in  which  Winifred's  fate,  and 
my  mother's  harshness,  and  my  father's  scarred  breast, 
seemed  all  a  mingled  mystery  of  reminiscent  pain. 

I  had  not  stood  more  than  a  minute,  however,  when  I  was 
startled  into  a  very  different  mood.  I  thought  I  heard  a 
sobbing  noise,  which  seemed  to  me  to  come  from  some  one 
overhead,  some  one  lying  upon  the  boards  of  the  room 
above  me.  I  was  rooted  to  the  spot  where  I  stood,  for  the 
sob  seemed  scarcely  human,  and  yet  it  seemed  to  be  hers.  A 
new  feeling  about  Winifred's  madness  came  upon  me.  I  re- 
called Mivart's  liorrible  description  of  the  mimicry.  My 
God!  what  was  I  about  to  see?  I  dared  not  turn  and  go  up- 
stairs; the  fire  and  the  singing  tea-kettle  were,  at  least,  com- 
panions.    But  something  impelled  me  to  take  the  bow  and 


Winifred's   Dukkeripen  135 

draw  it  across  the  crwth-strings.  Presently  I  thought  I 
heard  a  door  over-head  softly  open,  and  this  was  followed 
by  the  almost  inaudible  creak  of  a  light  footstep  descending 
the  stairs.  With  paralysed  pulses  I  kept  my  eyes  fixed  on 
the  half-open  door,  in  the  certainty  of  seeing  her  pass  along 
the  little  passage  leading  from  the  staircase  to  the  front  door. 
But  as  I  heard  the  dear  footsteps  descend  stair  after  stair 
my  horror  left  me,  and  I  nearly  began  to  sob  myself.  My 
thoughts  now  were  all  for  her  safety.  I  slipped  into  the 
recess,  fearing  to  take  her  by  surprise. 

Soon  the  slim  girlish  figure  passed  into  the  room.  And 
as  I  saw  her  glide  along  I  was  stunned,  as  though  I  had  not 
expected  to  see  her,  as  though  I  had  not  known  the  footstep 
coming  down  the  stairs. 

With  her  eyes  fixed  on  the  fireplace,  she  brushed  past  me 
without  perceiving  me,  took  a  chair,  and  sat  down  in  front 
of  the  fire,  her  elbows  resting  on  her  knees,  and  her  face 
meditatively  sunk  between  her  hands.  Her  sobbing  had 
ceased,  and  unless  my  ears  deceived  me,  had  given  place  to 
an  occasional  soft  happy  gurgle  of  childish  laughter. 

I  stepped  out  from  the  shelter  of  my  archway  into  the 
middle  of  the  room,  dubious  as  to  what  course  to  pursue.  I 
thought  that,  on  the  whole,  the  movement  that  would  startle 
her  least  would  be  to  slip  quietly  out  of  the  room  and  out 
of  the  house  while  she  was  in  the  reverie,  then  knock  at  the 
door.  She  would  arouse  herself  then,  expecting  to  see  some 
one,  and  would  not  be  so  entirely  taken  by  surprise  at  the 
sight  of  my  face  as  she  would  have  been  at  finding  me, 
without  the  slightest  warning,  standing  behind  her  in  the 
room.  I  did  this:  I  slipped  out  at  the  door  and  knocked, 
gently  at  first,  but  got  no  answer;  then  a  little  louder — no 
answer;  then  louder  and  louder,  till  at  last  I  thundered  at 
the  door  in  a  state  of  growing  alarm ;  still  no  answer. 

"She  is  stone  deaf,"  I  thought;  and  now  I  remembered 
having  noticed,  as  she  brushed  past  me,  a  far-oflf  gaze  in 
her  eyes,  such  as  some  stone-deaf  people  show. 

I  re-entered  tlie  house.  There  she  was,  sitting  immov- 
ably before  the  fire,  in  the  same  reverie.  I  coughed  and 
hemmed,  softly  at  first,  then  more  loudly,  finally  with  such 
vigour  that  I  ran  the  risk  of  damaging  my  throat,  and  still 
there  was  no  movement  of  the  head  bent  over  the  fire  and 
resting  in  the  palms  of  the  hands.  At  last  I  made  a  step  for- 
ward, then  another,  finally  finding  myself  on  the  knitted 


136  Aylwin 

cloth  hearthrug  beside  her.  I  now  had  the  full  view  of  her 
profile.  That  she  should  be  still  unconscious  of  my  pres- 
ence was  unaccountable,  for  I  stood  at  the  end  of  the  rug 
gazing  at  her.  Again  I  coughed  and  hemmed,  but  without 
producing  the  smallest  effect.  Then  I  determined  to  ad- 
dress her;  but  I  thought  it  would  be  safer  to  do  so  as  a 
stranger  than  to  announce  myself  at  once  as  Henry. 

"1  beg  pardon,"  I  said,  "but  is  there  any  one  at  home?" 

No  answer. 

'Ts  this  the  way  to  Capel  Curig?" 

No  answer. 

"Will  you  give  me  shelter?"  I  said;  and  finally  I  gave  a 
desperate  "halloo." 

My  efforts  had  not  produced  the  slightest  effect.  I  was 
now  in  a  state  of  great  agitation.  That  she  was  stone  deaf 
seemed  evident.  But  was  she  not  in  some  kind  of  fit,  though 
without  the  contortions  of  face  Mivart  had  described  to  me 
— contortions  which  haunted  me  as  much  as  though  I  had 
seen  them?  I  stooped  down  and  gazed  into  her  face.  There 
was  now  no  terror  there,  nor  even  sorrow.  I  could  see  in 
her  eyes  sparks  of  pleasure,  as  in  the  eyes  of  an  infant  when 
it  seems  to  see  in  the  air  pictures  or  colours  to  which 
our  eyes  are  blind.  Round  about  her  cheek  and  mouth  a  little 
dimple  was  playing,  exactly  like  the  dimple  that  plays 
around  the  mouth  of  a  pleased  child.  This  marvellous  ex- 
pression on  her  face  recalled  to  me  what  Mivart  had  said 
as  to  the  form  her  dementia  assumed  between  one  paroxysm 
and  another. 

"Thank  God,"  thought  I,  "she's  not  in  a  fit;  she's  only 
deaf." 

Driven  to  desperation,  however,  I  seized  her  shoulder  and 
shook  it.  This  aroused  her.  She  started  up  with  violence, 
at  the  same  time  overturning  the  chair  upon  which  she  had 
been  sitting.  She  stared  at  me  wildly.  The  danger  of  what 
I  had  done  struck  me  now.  A  fortunate  inspiration  caused 
me  to  say,  "Tywysog  o'r  Niwl."  Then  there  broke  over  her 
face  a  sweet  smile  of  childish  pleasure.  She  made  a  grace- 
ful curtsey,  and  said.  "You've  come  at  last;  I  was  thinking 
about  you  all  the  while." 

Shall  I  ever  forget  her  expression?  Her  eyes  were  alive 
with  light  and  pleasure.  It  was  as  though  Winifred's  soul 
liad  fled  or  the  soul  of  her  childhood  had  re-entered  and 
taken  possession  of  her  body.     But  the  witchery  of  her  ex- 


Winifred's  Dukkeripen  137 

pression  no  words  can  describe.  Never  had  I  seen  her  so 
lovely  as  now.  Often  when  a  child  I  had  seen  the  boatmen 
on  the  sands  look  at  us  as  we  passed — seen  them  stay  in  the 
midst  of  their  toil,  their  dull  faces  brightening-  with  admira- 
tion, as  though  a  bar  of  unexpected  sunlight  had  fallen 
across  them.  In  the  fields  I  had  seen  labourers,  sitting  at 
their  simple  dinner  under  the  hedges,  stay  their  meal  to  look 
after  the  child, — so  winning,  dazzling,  and  strange  was  her 
beauty.  And  when  I  had  first  met  her  again,  a  child  no 
longer,  in  the  churchyard,  my  memory  had  accepted  her  at 
once  as  fulfilling,  and  more  than  fulfilling,  all  her  child- 
hood's promise.  But  never  had  she  looked  so  bewitching  as 
now — a  poor  mad  girl  who  had  lost  her  wits  from  terror. 

For  some  time  I  could  only  keep  murmuring:  "More 
lovely  mad  than  sane!" 

"As  if  I  didn't  know  the  Prince!"  said  she.  "You  who,  in 
fine  weather  or  cloudy,  wet  or  dry,  are  there  on  the  hills  to 
meet  me!  As  if  I  don't  know  the  Prince  of  the  Mist  when  I 
see  him!  But  how  kind  of  you  to  come  down  here  and  see 
poor  Winnie,  poor  lonely  Winnie,  at  home!" 

She  fetched  a  chair,  placed  it  in  front  of  the  fire,  pointing 
to  it  with  the  same  ravishingly  childlike  smile,  indicating 
that  it  was  for  me,  and  then,  when  she  saw  me  mechanically 
sit  down,  picked  up  her  chair  and  came  and  sat  close  beside 
me. 

In  a  second  she  was  lost  in  a  reverie  as  profound  as  that 
from  which  I  had  aroused  her;  and  the  only  sound  I  heard 
was  the  rain  on  the  window  and  the  fitful  gusts  of  wind  play- 
ing around  the  cottage. 

The  wind  having  blown  open  the  door,  I  got  up  to  shut 
it.  Winifred  rose  too,  and  again  taking  hold  of  my  hand, 
she  looked  up  into  my  face  with  a  smile  and  said,  "Don't 
go;  I'm  so  lonely — poor  Winnie's  so  lonely." 

As  I  held  her  hand  in  mine,  and  closed  my  other  hand 
over  it,  I  murmured  to  myself,  "If  God  will  only  give  her 
to  me  like  this — mad  like  this — I  will  be  content." 

"Dearest,"  I  said,  longing  to  put  my  arm  round  her  waist 
— to  kiss  her  own  passionless  lips — but  I  dared  not,  lest  I 
might  frighten  her  away,  "I  will  not  leave  you.  I  will  never 
leave  you.    You  shall  never  be  lonely  any  more." 

I  closed  the  door,  and  we  resumed  our  seats. 

Can  I  put  into  words  what  passed  within  my  soul  as  we 
two  sat  by  the  fire,  she  holding  my  hand  in  her  own — ^hold- 


138  Aylwin 

ing  it  as  innocently  as  a  child  holds  the  hand  of  its  mother? 
Can  I  put  into  words  my  mingled  feelings  of  love  and  pity 
and  wild  grief,  as  I  sat  looking  at  her  and  murmuring,  "Yes; 
if  God  will  only  give  her  to  me  V^c  iliis,  I  will  be  content"? 

"Prince,"  said  she,  "your  eyes  look  very  kind! — ^Sweet, 
sweet  eyes,"  she  continued,  looking  at  me.  "The  Prince  of 
the  Mist  has  love-eyes,"  she  repeated,  as  she  placed  the  seats 
before  the  fire  again. 

Then  I  heard  her  murmur,  "Love-eyes!  love-eyes!  Henry's 
love-eyes!"  Then  a  terrible  change  came  over  her.  She 
sprang  up  and  came  and  peered  in  my  face.  An  indescrib- 
able expression  of  terror  overspread  her  features,  her  nostrils 
expanded,  her  lips  were  drawn  tightly  over  her  teeth,  her 
eyes  seemed  starting  from  their  sockets;  her  throat  suddenly 
became  fiuted  like  the  throat  of  an  aged  woman,  then  veined 
with  knotted,  cruel  cords.  Then  she  stood  as  transfixed, 
and  her  face  was  mimicking  that  appalling  look  on  her 
father's  face  which  I  had  seen  in  the  moonlight.  With  a  yell 
of  "Father!"  she  leapt  from  me.  Then  she  rushed  from  the 
house,  and  I  could  hear  her  run  by  the  window,  crying, 
"Cursed,  cursed,  cursed  by  Henry's  father!" 

For  an  instant  the  movement  took  away  my  breath;  but  I 
soon  recovered  and  sprang  after  her  to  the  door. 

There,  in  the  distance,  I  saw  her  in  the  rain,  running 
along  the  road.  My  first  impulse  was  to  follow  her  and  run 
her  down.  But  luckily  I  considered  the  effect  this  might 
have  in  increasing  her  terror,  and  stopped.  She  was  soon 
out  of  sight.  1  wandered  about  the  road  calling  her  name, 
and  calling  on  Heaven  to  have  a  little  pity — a  little  mercy. 


HI 

I  DECIDED  to  return  to  the  house,  but  found  that  I  had  lost 
my  way  in  the  obscurity  and  pelting  rain.  For  hours  I  wan- 
dered about,  without  the  slightest  clue  as  to  where  I  was.  I 
was  literally  soaked  to  the  skin.  Several  times  I  fell  into 
holes  in  a  morass,  and  was  up  to  my  hips  in  moss  and  mud 
and  water.  Then  I  began  to  call  out  for  assistance  till  I  was 
hoarse.  I  might  as  well  have  called  out  on  an  uninhabited 
island. 


Winifred's   Dukkeripen  139 

The  night  wore  on,  and  the  darkness  grew  so  intense  that 
I  could  scarcely  see  my  hand  when  I  held  it  up.  Every  star 
in  the  heavens  was  hid  away  as  by  a  thick  pall.  The  dark- 
ness was  positively  benumbing  to  the  faculties,  and  added, 
if  possible,  to  the  misery  I  was  in  on  account  of  Winifred. 
Suddenly  my  progress  was  arrested.  I  had  fallen  violently 
against  something.  A  human  body,  a  woman!  I  thrust  out 
my  hand  and  seized  a  woman's  damp  arm. 

"Winifred,"  I  cried,  "it's  Henry." 

"I  thought  as  much,"  said  the  voice  of  the  Gypsy  girl  I 
had  met  at  the  wayside  inn,  and  she  seized  me  by  the  throat 
with  a  fearful  grip.  "You've  been  to  the  cottage  and  skeared 
her  away,  and  now  she's  seed  you  there  she'll  never  come 
back  ;  she'll  wander  about  the  hills  till  she  drops  down  dead, 
or  falls  over  the  brinks." 

"Oh  God!"  I  cried,  as  I  struggled  away  from  her.  "Wini- 
fred! Winifred!" 

There  was  silence  between  us  then. 

"You  seem  mighty  fond  on  her,  young  man,"  said  the 
Gypsy  at  length,  in  a  softened  voice,  "and  you  don't  strike 
out  at  me  for  grabbin'  your  throat." 

"Winifred!  Winifred!"  I  said,  as  I  thought  of  her  on  the 
hills  in  a  night  like  this. 

"You  seem  mighty  fond  on  her,  young  man,"  repeated 
the  girl's  voice  in  the  darkness. 

But  I  could  afford  no  words  for  her,  so  cruelly  was  misery 
lacerating  me. 

"Reia,"  said  the  Gypsy,  "did  I  hurt  your  throat  just  now? 
I  hope  I  didn't;  but  you  see  she  was  the  only  one  of  'em 
ever  I  liked,  Gorgio  or  Gorgie,  'cept  Mrs.  Davis,  lad  or 
wench.  I  know'd  her  as  a  child,  and  arterwards,  when  a  fine 
English  lady,  as  poor  as  a  church-mouse,  tried  to  spile  her, 
a-makin'  her  a  fine  lady  too,  I  thought  she'd  forget  all  about 
me.  But  not  she.  I  never  once  called  at  Mrs.  Davies's 
house  with  my  crwth,  as  she  taught  me  to  play  on,  but  out 
Winnie  would  come  with  her  bright  eyes  an'  say,  'Oh,  I'rn 
so  glad!'  She  meant  she  was  glad  to  see  me,  bless  the  kind 
heart  on  her.  An'  when  I  used  to  see  her  on  the  hills,  she'd 
come  runnin'  up  to  me,  and  she'd  put  her  little  hand  in  mine, 
she  would,  an'  chatter  away,  she  would,  as  we  went  up  and 
up.  An'  one  day,  when  she  heard  me  callin'  one  o'  the 
Romany  chies  sister,  she  says,  *Is  that  your  sister?'  an'  when 
I  says,  'No ;  but  the  Romany  chies  calls  each  other  sister,' 


140  Aylwin 

then  says  she,  pretending  not  to  know  all  about  our  Romany 
ways,  'Sinfi,  I'm  very  fond  of  you,  may  /  call  you  sister?' 
An'  she  had  sich  ways;  and  she's  the  only  Gorgio  or  Gorgie, 
'cept  Mrs.  Davies,  as  I  ever  liked,  lad  or  wench." 

The  Gypsy's  simple  words  came  like  a  new  message  of 
comfort  and  hope,  but  I  could  not  speak. 

''Young  man,"  she  continued,  "are  you  there?"  and  she 
put  out  her  hand  to  feel  for  me. 

I  took  hold  of  the  hand.  No  words  passed;  none  were 
needed.  Never  had  I  known  friendship  before.  After  a 
short  time  I  said: 

"What  shall  we  do,  Sinfi?" 

"I  shall  wait  a  bit,  till  the  stars  are  out,"  said  she.  "I 
know  they're  a-comin'  out  by  the  feel  o'  the  wind.  Then  I 
shall  walk  up  a  path  as  Winnie  knows.  The  sun'll  be  up 
ready  for  me  by  the  time  I  get  to  the  part  I  wants  to  go  to. 
You  know,  young  man,  I  must  find  her.  She'll  never  come 
back  to  the  cottage  no  more,  now  she's  been  skeared  away 
from  it." 

"But  I  must  accompany  you,"  I  said. 

"No,  no,  you  musn't  do  that,"  said  the  Gypsy;  "she  might 
take  fright  and  fall  and  be  killed.  Besides,"  said  she,  "Wini- 
fred Wynne's  under  a  cuss;  it's  bad  luck  to  follow  up  any- 
body under  a  cuss." 

"But  you  are  following  her,"  I  said. 

"Ah,  but  that's  dififerent.  'Gorgio  cuss  never  touched 
Romany,'  as  my  mammy,  as  had  the  seein'  eye,  used  to  say." 

"But,"  I  exclaimed,  vehemently,  "I  zuant  to  be  cursed 
with  her.  I  have  followed  her  to  be  cursed  with  her.  I 
mean  to  go  with  you." 

"Young  man,"  said  she,  "are  there  many  o'  your  sort 
among  the  Gorgios?" 

"I  don't  know  and  I  don't  care,"  said  I. 

"  'Cause,"  said  she,  "that  sayin'  o'  yourn  is  a  fine  sight 
liker  a  Romany  chi's  nor  a  Romany  chal's.  It's  the  chies 
as  sticks  to  the  chals,  cuss  or  no  cuss.  I  wish  the  chals  'ud 
stick  as  close  to  the  chies." 

After  much  persuasion,  however,  I  induced  the  Gypsy  to 
let  me  accompany  her,  promising  to  abide  implicitly  by  her 
instructions. 

Even  while  we  were  talking  the  rain  had  ceased,  and 
patches  of  stars  were  shining  brilliantly.  Sinfi  Lovell  pro- 
posed that  we  should  go  to  the  cottage,  dry  our  clothes,  and 


Winifred's   Dukkeripen  141 

furnish  ourselves  with  a  day's  provisions,  which  she  said  a 
certain  cupboard  in  the  cottage  would  supply,  and  also  with 
her  crwth,  which  she  appeared  to  consider  essential  to  the 
success  of  the  enterprise. 

"She's  fond  o'  the  crwth,"  she  said.  "She  alius  wanted 
Mrs.  Davies  to  larn  her  to  play  it,  but  her  aunt  never  would, 
'cause  when  it's  played  by  a  maid  on  the  hills  to  the  Welsh 
dukkerin'  gillie,*  the  spirits  o'  Snowdon  and  the  livin' 
mullosf  o'  them  as  she's  fond  on  will  sometimes  come  and 
show  themselves,  and  she  said  Winnie  wasn't  at  all  the  sort 
o'  gal  to  feel  comfable  with  spirits  moving  round  her.  She 
larnt  me  it,  though.  It's  only  when  the  crwth  is  played  by  a 
maid  on  the  hills  that  the  spirits  can  follow  it." 

We  did  as  Sinfi  suggested,  and  afterwards  began  our 
search.  She  proposed  that  we  should  go  at  once  to  Knock- 
ers' Llyn,  where  she  had  seen  Winifred  the  day  before  sit- 
ting and  talking  to  herself.    We  proceeded  towards  the  spot. 


IV. 

The  Gypsy  girl  was  as  lithe  and  active  as  Winifred  herself, 
and  vastly  more  powerful.  I  was  wasted  by  illness  and  fa- 
tigue. Along  the  rough  path  we  went,  while  the  morning 
gradually  broke  over  the  east.  Great  isles  and  continents  of 
clouds  were  rolled  and  swirled  from  peak  to  peak,  from  crag 
to  crag,  across  steaming  valley  and  valley;  iron-grey  at  first, 
then  faintly  tinged  with  rose,  which  grew  warmer  and  richer 
and  deeper  every  moment. 

"It's  a-goin'  to  be  one  of  the  finest  sunrises  ever  seed," 
said  the  Gypsy  girl.  "Dordi!  the  Gorgios  come  to  see  our 
sunrises,"  she  continued,  with  the  pride  of  an  owner  of 
Snowdon.  "You  know  this  is  the  only  way  to  see  the  hills. 
You  may  ride  up  the  Llanberis  side  in  a  go-cart." 

Racked  with  anxiety  as  I  was,  I  found  it  a  relief  during 
the  ascent  to  listen  to  the  Gypsy's  talk  about  Winifred.  She 
gave  me  a  string  of  reminiscences  about  her  that  enchained, 
enchanted,  and  yet  harrowed  me.  A  strong  friendship  had 
already  sprung  up  between  me  and  my  companion;  and  I 

*Dukkerin   gillie,  incantation  song. 

fLiVm'  mullos,  wraiths.  ■  ,    ^ 


142  Aylwin 

was  led  to  tell  her  about  the  cross  and  the  curse,  the  viola- 
tion of  my  father's  tomb  and  its  disastrous  consequences. 
She  was  evidently  much  awed  by  the  story. 

"Well,"  said  she,  when  I  had  stopped  to  look  around,  "it's 
my  belief  as  the  cuss  is  a-workin'  now,  and'll  have  to  spend 
itself.  If  it  could  ha'  spent  itself  on  the  feyther  as  did  the 
mischief,  why  all  well  an'  good,  but,  you  see,  he's  gone,  an' 
left  it  to  spend  itself  on  his  chavi;  jist  the  way  with  'em 
Gorgio  feythers  an'  Romany  daddies.  It'll  have  to  spend 
itself,  though,  that  cuss  will,  I'm  afeard." 

"But,"  I  said,  "you  don't  mean  that  you  think  for  her 
father's  crime  she'll  have  to  beg  her  bread  in  desolate 
places." 

"I  do  though,  wusser  luck,"  said  the  Gypsy  solemnly, 
stopping  suddenly,  and  standing  still  as  a  statue. 

"And  this,"  I  ejaculated,  "is  the  hideous  belief  of  all  races 
in  all  times!  Monstrous  if  a  lie — more  monstrous  if  true! 
Anyhow  I'll  find  her.  I'll  traverse  the  earth  till  I  find  her. 
I'll  share  her  lot  with  her,  whatever  it  may  be,  and  wherever 
it  mav  be  in  the  world.  If  she's  a  beggar,  I'll  beg  by  her 
side."' 

"Right  you  are,  brother,"  said  the  Gypsy,  breaking  in  en- 
thusiastically. "I  likes  to  hear  a  man  say  that.  You're  liker 
a  Romany  chi  nor  a  Romany  chal,  the  more  I  see  of  you. 
What  I  says  to  our  people  is: — 'If  the  Romany  chals  would 
only  stick  by  the  Romany  chies  as  the  Romany  chies  sticks 
by  the  Romany  chals,  where  'ud  the  Gorgios  be  then?  Why, 
the  Romanies  would  be  the  strongest  people  on  the  arth.' 
But  you  see,  reia,  about  this  cuss — a  cuss  has  to  work  itself 
out,  jist  for  all  the  world  like  the  bite  of  a  sap.''* 

Then  she  continued,  with  great  earnestness,  looking 
across  the  kindling  expanse  of  hill  and  valley  before  us: 
"You  know,  the  very  dead  things  round  us, — these  here 
peaks,  an'  rocks,  an'  lakes,  an'  mountains — ay,  an'  the  woods 
an'  the  sun  an'  the  sky  above  our  heads, — cusses  us  when 
we  do  anythink  wrong.  You  may  see  it  by  the  way  they 
looks  at  you.  Of  course  I  mean  when  you  do  anythink 
wrong  accordin'  tc  us  Romanies.  I  don't  mean  wrong  ac- 
cordin'  to  the  Gorgios:  they're  two  very  different  kinds  o' 
wrongs." 

"I  don't  see  the  difference,"  said  I;  "but  tell  me  more 
about  Winifred." 
*Sap,  a  snake. 


Winifred's   Dukkeripen  143 

"You  don't  see  the  difference?"  said  Siiiii.  "Well,  then,  I 
do.  It's  wrong-  to  tell  a  lie  to  a  Romany,  ain't  it?  But  is  it 
wrong  to  tell  a  lie  to  a  Gorgio?  Not  a  bit  of  it.  And  why? 
'Cause  most  Gorgios  is  fools  and  zvonts  lies,  an'  that  gives 
the  poor  Romanies  a  chance.  But  this  here  cuss  is  a  very 
bad  kind  o'  cuss.  It's  a  dead  man's  cuss,  and  what's  wuss, 
him  as  is  cussed  is  dead  and  out  of  the  way,  and  so  it  has  to 
be  worked  out  in  the  blood  of  his  child.  But  when  she's 
done  that,  when  she's  worked  it  out  of  her  blood,  things'll 
come  right  agin  if  the  cross  is  put  back  agin  on  your 
feyther's  buzzum." 

"When  she  has  done  what?"  I  said. 

"Begged  her  bread  in  desolate  places,"  said  the  Gypsy 
girl,  solemnly.  "Then  if  the  cross  is  put  back  agin  on  your 
feyther's  buzzum,  I  believe  things'll  all  come  right.  It's  bad 
the  cusser  was  your  feyther  though." 

"But  why?"  i  asked. 

"There's  nobody  can't  hurt  you  and  them  you're  fond  on 
as  your  own  breed  can.  As  my  poor  mammy  used  to  say, 
'For  g-ood  or  for  ill  you  must  dig  deep  to  bury  your  daddy.' 
But  you  know,  brother,  the  wust  o'  this  job  is  that  it's  a 
trushul  as  has  been  stole." 

"A  trushul?" 

"What  you  call  a  cross.  There's  nothing  in  the  world  so 
strong  for  cussin'  and  blessin'  as  a  trushul,  unless  the  stars 
shinin'  in  the  river  or  the  hand  in  the  clouds  is  as  strong. 
Why,  I  tell  you  there's  nothin'  a  trushul  can't  do,  whether 
it's  curin'  a  man  as  is  bit  by  a  sap,  or  wipin'  the  very  rain- 
bow out  o'  the  sky  by  jist  layin'  two  sticks  crossways,  or 
even  curin'  the  cramp  in  your  legs  by  jist  settin'  your  shoes 
crossways;  there's  nothin'  for  good  or  bad  a  trushul  can't 
do  if  it  likes.  Hav'n't  you  never  heer'd  o'  the  dukkeripen 
o'  the  trushul  shinin'  in  the  sunset  sky  when  the  light  o'  the 
sinkin'  sun  shoots  up  behind  a  bar  o'  clouds  an'  makes  a 
kind  o'  fiery  cross?  But  to  go  and  steal  a  triishul  out  of  a 
dead  man's  tomb — why,  it's  no  wonder  as  the  Wynnes  is 
cussed,  feyther  and  child." 

I  could  not  have  tolerated  this  prattle  about  Gypsy  super- 
stitions had  I  not  observed  that  through  it  all  the  Gypsy 
was  on  the  qin  vivc,  looking  for  the  traces  of  her  path  that 
Winifred  had  unconsciously  left  behind  her.  Had  the  Gypsy 
been  following  the  trail  with  the  silence  of  an  American 
Indian,  she  could  not  have  worked  more  carefully  than  she 


144  Aylwin 

was  now  working  while  her  tongue  went  ratthng  on.  I  af- 
terwards found  this  to  be  a  characteristic  of  her  race,  as  I 
afterwards  found  that  what  is  called  the  long  sight  of  the 
Gypsies  (as  displayed  in  the  following  of  the  patrin^)  is  not 
long  sight  at  all,  but  is  the  result  of  a  peculiar  faculty  the 
Gypsies  have  of  observing  more  closely  than  Gorgios  do 
everything  that  meets  their  eyes  in  the  woods  and  on  the 
hills  and  along  the  roads.  When  we  reached  the  spot  indi- 
cated by  the  Gypsy  as  being  Winifred's  haunt,  the  ledge 
^v■here  she  was  in  the  habit  of  coming  for  her  imaginary 
interviews  with  the  "Prince  of  the  Mist,"  we  did  not  stay 
there,  but  for  a  time  still  followed  the  path,  which  from  this 
point  became  rougher  and  rougher,  alongside  deep  preci- 
pices and  chasms.  Every  now  and  then  she  would  stop  on 
a  ledge  of  rock,  and,  without  staying  her  prattle  for  a  mo- 
ment, stoop  down  and  examine  the  earth  with  eyes  that 
would  not  have  missed  the  footprint  of  a  rat.  When  I  saw 
her  pause,  as  she  sometimes  would  in  the  midst  of  her  scru- 
tiny, to  gaze  inquiringly  down  some  gulf,  which  then  seemed 
awful  to  my  inexperienced  eyes,  but  which  later  on  in  the 
day,  when  I  came  to  see  the  tremendous  chasms  of  that 
side  of  Snowdon,  seemed  insignificant  enough,  the  circula- 
tion of  my  blood  would  seem  to  stop,  and  then  rush  again 
through  my  body  more  violently  than  before.  And  while 
the  "patrin-chase"  went  on,  and  the  morning  grew  brighter 
and  brighter,  the  Gypsy's  lithe,  cat-like  tread  never  faltered. 
The  rise  and  fall  of  her  bosom  were  as  regular  and  as  calm 
as  in  the  public-house.  Such  agility  and  such  staying 
power  in  a  woman  astonished  me.  Finding  no  trace  of 
Winnie,  we  returned  to  the  little  plateau  by  Knockers' 
Llyn. 

"This  is  the  place,"  said  the  Gypsy ;  "it  used  to  be  called  in 
old  times  the  haunted  llyn,  because  when  you  sings  the  Welsh 
dukkerin'  gillie  here  or  plays  it  on  a  crwth,  the  Knock- 
ers answers  it.  I  dare  say  you've  heard  o'  what  the  Gorgios 
call  the  triple  echo  o'  Llyn  Ddw'r  Arddu.  Well,  it's  some- 
thin'  like  that,  only  bein'  done  by  the  knockin'  sperrits,  it's 
grander  and  don't  come  'cept  when  they  hears  the  Welsh 
dukkerin'  gillie.  Now,  you  must  hide  yourself  somewheres 
while  I  go  and  touch  the  crwth  in  her  favourite  place.  I 
think  she'll  come  to  that.  I  wash  though  I  hadn't  brought 
ye,"  she  continued,  looking  at  me  meditatively;  "you're  a  lit- 
*Trail. 


Winifred's  Dukkeripen  .    145 

tie  winded  a-ready,  and  we  ain't  begun  the  rough  climbin'  at 
all.  Up  to  this  'ere  pool  Winnie  and  me  and  Rhona  Boswell 
used  to  climb  when  we  was  children;  it  needed  longer  legs 
nor  ourn  to  get  further  up,  and  you're  winded  a-ready.  If 
she  should  come  on  you  suddent,  she's  liker  than  not  to  run 
for  a  mile  or  more  up  that  path  where  we've  just  been  and 
then  to  jump  down  one  of  them  chasms  you've  just  seed. 
But  if  she  does  pop  on  ye,  don't  you  try  to  grab  her,  what- 
ever you  do;  leave  me  alone  for  that.  You  ain't  got  strength 
enough  to  grab  a  hare;  you  ought  to  be  in  bed.  Besides, 
she  won't  be  skeared  at  me.  But,"  she  continued,  turning 
round  to  look  at  the  vast  circuit  of  peaks  stretching  away 
as  far  as  the  eye  could  reach,  "we  shall  have  to  ketch  her 
to-day  somehow.  She'll  never  go  back  to  the  cottage  where 
you  went  and  skeared  her;  and  if  she  don't  have  a  fall,  she'll 
run  about  these  here  hills  till  she  drops.  We  shall  have  to 
ketch  her  to-day  somehow.  I'm  in  hopes  she'll  come  to  the 
sound  of  my  crwth,  she's  so  uncommon  fond  on  it;  and  if 
she  don't  come  in  the  flesh,  p'rhaps  her  livin'  mullo  will 
come,  and  that'll  show  she's  alive." 

She  placed  me  in  a  crevice  overlooking  the  small  lake,  or 
pool,  which  on  the  opposite  side  was  enclosed  in  a  gorge, 
opening  only  by  a  cleft  to  the  east.  Then  she  unburdened 
herself  of  a  wallet  containing  the  breakfast,  saying,  "When 
I  come  back  we'll  fall  to  and  breakfiss."  She  then,  as 
though  she  were  following  the  trail,  made  a  circuit  of  the  pool 
and  disappeared  through  the  gorge.  All  around  the  pool 
there  was  a  narrow  ragged  ledge  leading  to  this  eastern 
opening.  I  stood  concealed  in  my  crevice  and  looked  at  the 
peaks,  or  rather  at  the  vast  masses  of  billowy  vapours  en- 
veloping them,  as  they  sometimes  boiled  and  sometimes 
blazed,  shaking — when  the  sun  struck  one  and  then  another 
— from  brilliant  amethyst  to  vermilion,  shot  occasionally 
with  purple,  or  gold,  or  blue. 

A  radiance  now  came  pouring  through  the  eastern  open- 
ing down  the  gorge  or  cwm  itself,  and  soon  the  light  vapours 
floating  about  the  pool  were  turned  to  sailing  gauzes,  all 
quivering  with  different  dyes,  as  though  a  rainbow  had  be- 
come torn  from  the  sky  and  woven  into  gossamer  hangings 
and  set  adrift. 

Fatigue  was  beginning  to  numb  my  senses  and  to  con- 
quer my  brain.  The  acuteness  of  my  mental  atiguish  ha<l 
consumed  itself  in  its  own  intense  fires.    The  idea  of  Wini- 


146 


Avlwin 


fred's  danger  became  more  remote.  The  mist-pageants  of 
the  morning  seemed  somehow  to  emanate  from  Winnie. 

"No  one  is  worthy  to  haunt  such  a  scene  as  this,"  I  mur- 
mured, sinking  against  the  rock,  "but  Winifred — so  beauti- 
ful of  body  and  pure  of  soul.  Would  that  I  were  indeed  her 
'Prince  of  the  Mist,'  and  that  we  could  die  here  together 
with  Sinfi's  strains  in  our  ears." 

Then  I  felt  coming  over  me  strange  influences  which 
afterwards  became  familiar  to  me — influences  which  I  can 
only  call  the  spells  of  Snowdon.  They  were  far  more  in- 
tense than  those  strange,  sweet,  wild,  mesmeric  throbs  which 
I  used  to  feel  in  Graylingham  Wood,  and  which  my  an- 
cestress, Fenella  Stanley,  seems  also  to  have  known,  but 
they  were  akin  to  them.  Then  came  the  sound  of  Sinfi's 
crwth  and  song,  and  in  the  distance  repetitions  of  it,  as 
though  the  spirits  of  Snowdon  were,  in  very  truth,  joining 
in  a  chorus. 

At  once  a  marvellous  change  came  over  me.  I  seemed 
to  be  listening  to  my  ancestress,  Fenella  Stanley,  and  not  to 
Sinfi  Lovell.  I  was  hearing  that  strain  which  in  my  child- 
hood I  had  so  often  tried  to  imagine,  and  it  was  conjuring 
up  the  morning  sylphs  of  the  mountain  air  and  all  the 
"flower-sprites"  and  "sunshine  elves"  of  Snowdon. 


V. 

I  SHOOK  ofif  the  spell  when  the  music  ceased;  then  I  began 
to  wonder  why  the  Gypsy  did  not  return.  I  was  now  faint 
and  almost  famished  for  want  of  food.  I  opened  the  Gypsy's 
wallet.  There  was  the  substantial  and  tempting  breakfast 
she  had  brought  from  the  cottage  cupboard — cold  beef  and 
bread,  and  ale.    I  spread  the  breakfast  on  the  ground. 

Scarcely  had  I  done  so  when  a  figure  appeared  at  the 
opening  of  the  gorge  and  caught  the  ruddy  flood  of  light. 
It  was  Winifred,  bare-headed.  I  knew  it  was  she,  and  I 
waited  in  breathless  suspense,  crouching  close  up  into  the 
crevice,  dreading  lest  she  should  see  me  and  be  frightened 
away.  She  stood  in  the  eastern  cleft  of  the  gorge  against 
the  sun  for  fully  half  a  minute,  looking  around  as  a  stag 
might  look  that  was  trying  to  give  the  hunters  the  slip. 


Winifred's  Dukkcripen  147 

"She  has  seen  the  Gypsy,"  I  thought,  "and  been  scared 
by  her."  Then  she  came  down  and  gHded  along  the  side  of 
the  pool.  At  first  she  did  not  see  me,  though  she  stood  op- 
posite and  stopped,  while  the  opalescent  vapours  from  the 
pool  steamed  around  her,  and  she  shone  as  through  a  glitter- 
ing veil,  her  eyes  flashing  like  sapphires.  The  palpitation 
of  my  heart  choked  me;  I  dared  not  stir,  I  dared  not  speak; 
the  slightest  movement  or  the  slightest  sound  might  cause 
her  to  start  away.  There  was  she  whom  I  had  travelled  and 
toiled  to  find — there  was  she,  so  close  to  me,  and  yet  must 
I  let  her  pass  and  perhaps  lose  her  after  all — for  ever? 

Where  was  the  Gypsy  girl?  I  was  in  an  agony  of  desire  to 
see  her  or  hear  her  crwth,  and  yet  her  approach  might 
frighten  Winifred  to  her  destruction. 

But  Winifred,  who  had  now  seen  me,  did  not  bound  away 
with  that  heart-quelling  yell  of  hers  which  I  had  dreaded. 
No,  I  perceived  to  my  astonishment  that  the  flash  of  the 
eyes  was  not  of  alarm,  but  of  greeting  to  me — pleasure  at 
seeing  me!  She  came  close  to  the  water,  and  then  I  saw  a 
smile  on  her  face  through  the  misty  film — a  flash  of  shining 
teeth. 

"May  I  come?"  she  said. 

"Yes,  Winifred,"  I  gasped,  scarcely  knowing  what  I  said 
in  my  surprise  and  joy. 

She  came  slipping  round  the  pool,  and  in  a  few  seconds 
was  by  my  side.  Her  clothes  were  saturated  with  last 
night's  rain,  but  though  she  looked  very  cold,  she  did  not 
shiver,  a  proof  that  she  had  not  lain  down  on  the  hills,  but 
had  walked  about  during  the  whole  night.  There  was  no 
wildness  of  the  maniac  stare — there  was  no  idiotic  stare.  But 
oh,  the  witchery  of  the  gaze! 

If  one  could  imagine  the  look  on  the  face  of  a  wanderer 
from  the  cloud-palaces  of  the  sylphs,  or  the  gaze  in  the  eyes 
of  a  statue  newly  animated  by  the  passion  of  the  sculptor 
who  had  fashioned  it,  or  the  smile  on  the  face  of  a  wondering 
Eve  just  created  upon  the  earth — any  one  of  these  expres- 
sions would,  perhaps,  give  the  idea  of  that  on  Winifred's  face 
as  she  stood  there. 

"May  I  sit  down.  Prince?"  said  she. 

"Yes,  Winnie,"  I  replied;  "I've  been  waiting  for  you." 

"Been  waiting  for  poor  Winnie?"  she  said,  her  eyes  spark- 
ling anew  with  pleasure ;  and  she  sat  down  close  by  my  side, 
gazing  hungrily  at  the  food — her  hands  resting  on  her  lap. 


148  Aylwin 

I  laid  my  hand  upon  one  of  hers;  it  was  so  damp  and  cold 
that  it  made  me  shudder. 

"Why,  Winifred,"  I  said,  "how  cold  you  are!" 

"The  hills  are  so  cold!"  said  she,  "so  cold  when  the  stars 
go  out,  and  the  red  streaks  begin  to  come." 

"May  I  warm  your  hands  in  mine,  Winnie?"  I  said,  long- 
ing to  clasp  the  dear  fingers,  but  trembling  lest  anything  I 
might  say  or  do  should  bring  about  a  repetition  of  last 
night's  catastrophe. 

"Will  you.  Prince?"  said  she.  "How  very,  very  kind!" 
and  in  a  moment  the  hand  was  between  mine. 

Remembering  that  it  was  through  looking  into  my  eyes 
that  she  recognised  me  in  the  cottage,  I  now  avoided  look- 
ing straight  into  hers.  All  this  time  she  kept  gazing  wist- 
fully at  the  food  spread  out  on  the  ground. 

"Are  you  hungry,  Winifred?"  I  said. 

"Oh  yes  ;  so  hungry !"  said  she,  shaking  her  head  in  a  sad, 
meditative  way.  "Poor  Winifred  is  so  hungry  and  cold  and 
lonely!" 

"Will  you  breakfast  with  the  Prince  of  the  Mist,  Wini- 
fred?" 

"Oh,  may  I,  Prince?"  she  asked,  her  face  beaming  with 
delight. 

"To  be  sure  you  may,  Winnie.  You  may  always  break- 
fast with  the  Prince  of  the  Mist  if  you  like. 

"Always?  Always?"  she  repeated. 

"Yes,  Winnie,"  I  said,  as  I  handed  her  some  bread  and 
meat,  which  she  devoured  ravenously. 

"Yes,  dear  Winnie,"  I  continued,  handing  her  a  foaming 
horn  of  Sinfi's  ale,  to  which  she  did  as  full  justice  as  she 
was  doing  to  the  bread  and  meat.  "Yes,  I  want  you  to 
breakfast  with  me  and  dine  with  me  always." 

"Do  you  mean  live  with  you.  Prince?"  she  asked,  looking 
me  dreamily  in  the  face — "live  with  you  behind  the  white 
mist?    Is  this  our  wedding  breakfast.  Prince?" 

"Yes,  Winnie." 

Then  her  eyes  wandered  down  over  her  dress,  and  she 
said:  "Ah!  how  strange  I  did  not  notice  my  green  fairy 
kirtle  before.  And  I  declare  I  never  felt  till  this  moment 
the  wreath  of  gold  leaves  round  my  forehead.  Do  they  shine 
much  in  the  sun?" 

"They  quite  dazzle  me,  Winnie,"  I  said,  arching  my  hand 
above  my  eyes,  as  if  to  protect  them  from  the  glare. 


Winifred's  Dukkeripen  149 

"Do  you  have  a  nice  fire  there  when  it's  very  cold?"  she 
said. 

"Yes,  Winifred,"  I  said. 

She  then  sank  into  silence,  while  I  kept  plying  her  with 
food. 

After  she  had  appeased  her  hunger  she  sat  looking  into 
the  pool,  quite  unconscious,  apparently,  of  my  presence  by 
her  side,  and  lost  in  a  reverie  similar  to  that  which  I  had 
seen  at  the  cottage. 

The  form  her  dementia  had  taken  was  unlike  anything 
that  I  had  ever  conceived.  Madness  seemed  too  coarse  a 
word  to  denote  so  wonderful  and  fascinating  a  mental  de- 
rangement. Mivart's  comparison  to  a  musical  box  recurred 
to  me,  and  seemed  most  apt.  She  was  in  a  waking  dream. 
The  peril  lay  in  breaking  through  that  dream  and  bringing 
her  real  life  before  her.  There  was  a  certain  cogency  of 
dreamland  in  all  she  said  and  did.  And  I  found  that  she  sank 
into  silent  reverie  simply  because  she  waited,  like  a  person  in 
sleep,  for  the  current  of  her  thoughts  to  be  directed  and 
dictated  by  external  phenomena.  As  she  sat  there  gazing 
in  the  pool,  her  hand  gradually  warming  between  my  two 
hands,  I  felt  that  never  when  sane,  never  in  her  most  be- 
witching moments,  had  she  been  so  lovable  as  she  was  now. 
This  new  kind  of  spell  she  exercised  over  me  it  would  be 
impossible  to  describe.  But  it  sprang  from  the  expression 
on  her  face  of  that  absolute  freedom  from  all  self-conscious- 
ness which  is  the  great  charm  in  children,  combined  with 
the  grace  and  beauty  of  her  own  matchless  girlhood.  A  de- 
sire to  embrace  her,  to  crush  her  to  my  breast,  seized  me 
like  a  frenzy. 

"Winifred,"  I  said,  "you  are  very  cold." 

But  she  was  now  insensible  to  sound.  I  knew  from  ex- 
perience now  that  I  must  shake  her  to  bring  her  back  to 
consciousness,  for  evidently,  in  her  fits  of  reverie,  the  sounds 
falling  upon  her  ear  were  not  conveyed  to  the  brain  at  all. 

I  shook  her  gently,  and  said,  "The  Prince  of  the  Mist." 

She  started  back  to  life.  My  idea  had  been  a  happy  one. 
My  words  had  at  once  sent  her  thoughts  into  the  right  di- 
rection for  me. 

"Pardon  me.  Prince,"  said  she,  smiling;  "I  had  forgotten 
that  you  were  here." 

"Winifred,  I've  warmed  this  hand,  now  give  me  the 
other." 


150  Aylwin 

She  stretched  her  other  hand  across  her  breast  and  gave 
it  to  me.  This  brought  her  entire  body  close  to  me,  and  I 
said,  "Winnie,  you  are  cold  all  over.  Won't  you  let  the 
Prince  of  the  Mist  put  his  arms  round  you  and  warm  you?" 

"Oh,  I  should  like  it  so  much,"  she  said.  "But  are  you 
warm.  Prince?  are  you  really  v\"arm? — your  mist  is  mostly 
very  cold." 

"Quite  warm,  Winifred,"  I  said,  as  with  my  heart  swelling 
in  my  breast,  and  with  eyelids  closing  over  my  eyes  from 
very  joy,  I  drew  her  softly  upon  my  breast  once  more. 

"Yes — yes,"  I  murmured,  as  the  tears  gushed  from  my 
eyes  and  dropped  upon  the  soft  hair  that  I  was  kissing.  "If 
God  would  but  let  me  have  her  thus!  I  ask  for  nothing  bet- 
ter than  to  possess  a  maniac." 

As  we  sat  locked  in  each  other's  arms  the  head  of  Sinfi 
appeared  round  the  eastern  clifT  of  the  gorge  where  I  had 
first  seen  Winifred.  The  Gypsy  had  evidently  been  watch- 
ing us  from  there.  I  perceived  that  she  was  signalling  to 
me  that  I  was  not  to  grasp  Winifred.  Then  I  saw  Sinfi  sud- 
denly and  excitedly  point  to  the  sky  over  the  rock  beneath 
which  we  sat.  I  looked  up.  The  upper  sky  above  us  was 
now  clear  of  morning  mist,  and  right  over  our  heads,  Wini- 
fred's and  mine,  there  hung  a  little  morning  cloud  like  a 
feather  of  flickering  rosy  gold.  I  looked  again  towards  the 
corner  of  jutting  rock,  but  Sinfi's  head  had  disappeared. 

"Dear  Prince,"  said  Winifred,  "how  delightfully  warm 
you  are!  How  kind  of  you!  But  are  not  your  arms  a  little 
too  tight,  dear  Prince?    Poor  Winnie  cannot  breathe.    And 

this  thump,  thump,  thump,  like  a — like  a — fire-engine 

ahr 

Too  late  I  knew  what  my  folly  had  done.  The  turbulent 
action  of  my  heart  had  had  a  sympathetic  efifect  upon  hers. 
It  seemed  as  if  her  senses,  if  not  her  mind,  had  remembered 
another  occasion,  when,  as  she  was  lying  in  my  arms,  the 
beating  of  my  heart  had  disturbed  her.  In  one  lightning- 
flash  her  real  life  and  all  its  tragedy  broke  mercilessly  in 
upon  her.  The  idea  of  the  "Prince  of  the  Mist"  fled.  She 
started  up  and  away  from  me.  The  awful  mimicry  of  her 
father's  expression  spread  over  her  face.  With  a  yell  of 
"Fy  Nhad,"  and  then  a  yell  of  "Father!"  she  darted  round 
the  pool,  and  then,  bounding  up  the  rugged  path  like  a 
chamois,  disappeared  behind  a  corner  of  jutting  rock. 

At  the  same  moment  the  head  of  the  Gypsy  girl  reap-. 


Winifred's  Dukkeripen  151 

peared  round  the  eastern  cleft  of  the  gorge.  Sinfi  came 
quickly  up  to  me  and  whispered,  "Don't  follow." 

"I  will,"  I  said. 

"No,  you  won't,"  said  she,  seizing  my  wrist  with  a  grip  of 
iron.  "If  you  do  she's  done  for.  Do  you  know  where  she 
is  running  to?  A  couple  of  furlongs  up  that  path  there's 
another  that  branches  off  on  the  right;  it  ain't  more  nor  a 
futt-an-a-half  wide  along  a  precipuss  more  than  a  hundred 
futt  deep.  She  knows  it  well.  She'll  make  for  that.  The 
cuss  is  on  her  wuss  nor  ever,  judgin'  from  the  gurn  and  the 
flash  of  her  teeth." 

I  waited  for  two  or  three  seconds  in  the  wildest  impa- 
tience. 

"Let's  follow  her  now,"  I  said. 

"No,  no,"  she  whispered,  "not  yet,  'less  you  want  to  see 
her  tumble  down  the  cliff."  After  a  few  minutes  Sinfi  and 
I  went  up  the  main  pathway.  Winnie  seemed  to  have 
slackened  her  pace  when  she  was  out  of  sight,  for  we  saw 
her  just  turning  away  on  the  right  at  the  point  indicated 
by  Sinfi.  "Give  her  time  to  get  along  that  path,"  said  she, 
"and  then  she'll  be  all  right. 

In  a  state  of  agonized  suspense  I  stood  there  waiting. 
At  last  I  said: 

"I  must  go  after  her.  We  shall  lose  her — I  know  we  shall 
lose  her." 

Sinfi  demurred  a  moment,  then  acceded  to  my  wish,  and 
we  went  up  the  main  pathway  and  peered  round  the  corner 
of  the  jutting  rock  where  Winifred  had  last  been  visible. 
There,  along  a  ragged  shelf  bordering  a  yawning  chasm — a 
shelf  that  seemed  to  me  scarce  wide  enough  for  a  human  foot 
— ^Winifred  was  running  and  balancing  herself  as  surely  as 
a  bird  over  the  abyss. 

"Mind  she  doesn't  turn  round  sharp  and  see  you,"  said  the 
Gypsy.    "If  she  does  she'll  lose  her  head  and  over  she'll  fall!" 

I  crouched  and  gazed  at  Winifred  as  she  glided  along 
towards  a  vast  mountain  of  vapour  that  was  rolling  over  the 
chasm  close  to  her.  She  stood  and  looked  into  the  floating 
mass  for  a  moment,  and  then  passed  into  it  and  was  lost 
from  view. 


152  Aylwin 


VI. 

"Now  I  can  follow  her,"  said  Sinfi;  "but  you  mustn't  try  to 
come  along  here.  Wait  till  I  come  back.  I  suppose  you've 
given  her  all  the  breakfiss.  Give  me  a  drop  of  brandy  out 
o'  your  flask." 

I  gave  her  some  brandy  and  took  a  long  draught  of  the 
burning  liquor  myself,  for  I  was  fainting. 

"I  shall  go  with  you,"  I  said. 

"Dordi,"  said  the  Gypsy,  "how  quickly  you'd  be  a-layin' 
at  the  bottom  there!"  and  she  pointed  down  into  the  gulf 
at  our  feet. 

"I  shall  go  with  you,"  I  said. 

"No,  you  won't,"  said  the  Gypsy  doggedly;  "'cause  / 
sha'n't  go.  I  shall  git  round  and  meet  her.  I  know  where  we 
shall  strike  across  her  slot.    She'll  be  makin'  for  Llanberis." 

"I  let  her  escape,"  I  moaned.  "I  had  her  in  my  arms 
once;  but  you  signalled  to  me  not  to  grip  her." 

"If  you  had  ha'  grabbed  her,"  said  the  Gypsy,  "she'd  ha' 
pulled  you  along  like  a  feather — she's  so  mad-strong.  You 
go  back  to  the  llyn." 

The  Gypsy  girl  passed  along  the  shelf  and  was  soon  lost  in 
the  veil  of  vapour. 

I  returned  to  the  llyn  and  threw  myself  down  upon  the 
ground,  for  my  legs  sank  under  me,  but  the  dizziness  of 
fatigue  softened  the  efifect  of  my  distress.  The  rocks  and 
peaks  were  swinging  round  my  head.  Soon  I  found  the 
Gypsy  bending  over  me. 

"I  can't  find  her,"  said  she.  "We  had  best  make  haste 
and  strike  across  her  path  as  she  makes  for  Llanberis.  I 
have  a  notion  as  she's  sure  to  do  that." 

As  fast  as  we  could  scramble  along  those  rugged  tracks 
we  made  our  way  to  the  point  where  the  Gypsy  expected 
that  Winifred  would  pass.  We  remained  for  hours,  beating 
about  in  all  directions  in  search  of  her, — Sinfi  every  now 
and  then  touching  her  crwth  with  the  bow, — but  without 
any  result. 

"It's  my  belief  slie's  gone  straiglit  down  to  Llanberis," 
said  Sinfi;  "and  we'd  best  lose  no  time,  but  go  there  too." 

We  went  right  to  the  top  of  the  mountain  and  rested  for 


Winifred's  Dukkeripen  153 

a  little  time  011  y  Wyddfa,  Sinfi  taking  some  bread  and  cheese 
and  ale  in  the  cabin  there.  Then  we  descended  the  other 
side.  I  had  not  sense  then  to  notice  the  sunset-glories,  the 
peaks  of  mountains  melting  into  a  sky  of  rose  and  light- 
green,  over  which  a  phalanx  of  fiery  clouds  was  filing;  and 
yet  I  see  it  all  now  as  I  write,  and  I  hear  what  I  did  not  seem 
to  hear  then,  the  musical  chant  of  a  Welsh  guide  ahead  of 
us,  who  was  conducting  a  party  of  happy  tourists  to 
Llanberis. 

When  we  reached  the  village,  we  spent  hours  in  making 
searches  and  inquiries,  but  could  find  no  trace  of  her.  Oh, 
the  appalling  thought  of  Winifred  wandering  about  all  night 
famishing  on  the  hills!  I  went  to  the  inn  which  Sinfi  pointed 
out  to  me,  while  she  went  in  quest  of  some  Gypsy  friends, 
who,  she  said,  were  stopping  in  the  neighbourhood.  She 
promised  to  come  to  me  early  in  the  morning,  in  order  that 
we  might  renew  our  search  at  break  of  day. 

When  I  turned  into  bed  after  supper  I  said  to  myself: 
"There  will  be  no  sleep  for  me  this  night."  But  I  was  mis- 
taken. So  great  was  my  fatigue  that  sleep  came  upon  me 
with  a  strength  that  was  sudden  and  irresistible;  when  the 
servant  came  to  call  me  at  sunrise,  I  felt  as  though  I  had 
just  gone  to  bed.  It  was,  no  doubt,  this  sound  sleep,  and 
entire  respite  from  the  tension  of  mind  I  had  undergone, 
which  saved  me  from  another  serious  illness. 

I  found  the  Gypsy  already  waiting  for  me  below,  prepar- 
ing for  the  labours  before  her  by  making  a  hearty  meal  on 
salt  beef  and  ale. 

"Reia,"  said  she,  pointing  to  the  beef  with  her  knife,  "we 
sha'n't  get  bite  nor  sup,  'cept  what  we  carry,  either  inside  or 
out,  for  twelve  hours, — perhaps  not  for  twenty-four.  Be- 
fore I  give  up  this  slot  there  ain't  a  path,  nor  a  hill,  nor  a 
rock,  nor  a  valley,  nor  a  precipuss  as  won't  feel  my  fut. 
Come!  set  to." 

I  took  the  Gypsy's  advice,  made  as  hearty  a  breakfast  as  I 
could,  and  we  left  Llanberis  in  the  light  of  morning.  It  was 
not  till  we  had  reached  and  passed  a  place  called  Gwastad- 
nant  Gate  that  the  path  along  which  we  went  became  really 
W'ild  and  difficult.  The  Gypsy  seemed  to  know  every  inch 
of  the  country. 

We  reached  a  beautiful  lake,  where  Sinfi  stopped,  and  I 
began  to  question  her  as  to  what  was  to  be  our  route. 

"Winnie  know'd,"  said  she,  "some  Welsh  folk  as  fish  in 


154  Aylwin 

this  'ere  lake.  She  might  ha'  called  'em  to  mind,  poor  thing, 
and  come  off  here.    Fm  a-goin'  to  ask  about  her." 

Sinfi's  inquiries  here — her  inquiries  everywhere  that  day — 
ended  in  nothing  but  blank  and  cruel  disappointment. 

Remembering  that  Winifred's  very  earliest  childhood  was 
passed  near  Carnarvon,  I  proposed  to  the  Gypsy  that  we 
should  go  thither  at  once. 

After  sleeping  again  at  Llanberis,  we  went  to  Carnarvon, 
but  soon  returned  to  the  other  side  of  Snowdon,  for  at  Car- 
narvon we  could  find  no  trace  of  her, 

"Oh,  Sinfi,"  I  said,  as  we  stood  watching  the  peculiar 
bright  yellow  trout  in  Lake  Ogwen,  "she  is  starving — starv- 
ing on  the  hills — while  millions  of  people  are  eating,  gorg- 
ing, wasting  food.    I  shall  go  mad!" 

Sinfi  looked  at  me  mournfully  and  said: 

"It's  a  bad  job,  reia,  but  if  poor  Winnie  Wynne's  a- 
starvin'  it  ain't  the  fault  o'  them  as  happens  to  ha'  got  the 
full  belly.  There  ain't  a  Romany  in  Wales,  nor  there  ain't 
a  Gorgio  nuther,  as  wouldn't  give  Winnie  a  crust,  if  wonst 
we  could  find  her." 

"To  think  of  this  great,  rich  world,"  I  exclaimed  (to  my- 
self, not  to  the  Gypsy),  "choke-full  of  harvest,  bursting  with 
grain,  while  famishing  on  the  hills  for  a  mouthful  is  she — 
the  one!" 

"Reia,"  said  Sinfi,  with  much  solemnity,  "the  world's  full 
o'  vittles;  what's  wanted  is  jist  a  hand  as  can  put  the  vittles 
and  the  mouths  where  they  ought  to  be — cluss  togither. 
That's  what  the  hungry  Romany  says  when  he  snares  a  hare 
or  a  rabbit." 

We  walked  on.  After  a  while  Sinfi  said:  "A  Romany 
know^s  more  o'  these  here  kinds  o'  things,  reia,  than  a  Gor- 
gio does.  It's  my  belief  as  Winnie  Wynne  ain't  a-starvin'  on 
the  hills;  she  ain't  got  to  starve;  she's  on'y  got  to  beg  her 
bread.  She'll  have  to  do  that,  of  course;  but  beggin'  ain't 
so  bad  as  starvin',  after  all!  There's  some  as  begs  for  the 
love  on  it.    Videy  does." 

I  knew  by  this  time  that  it  was  useless  to  battle  against 
Sinfi's  conviction  that  the  curse  would  have  to  be  literally 
fulfilled,  so  I  kept  silence.  While  she  was  speaking  I  was 
suddenly  struck  by  a  thought  that  ought  to  have  come 
before. 

"Sinfi,"  I  said,  "didn't  you  know  an  English  lady  named 
Dairy mple,  who  lodged  with  Mrs.  Davies  for  some  years?" 


Winifred's   Dukkeripen  155 

"Yis,"  said  Sinfi,  "and  I  did  think  o'  her.  She  went  to  hve 
at  Carnarvon.  But  supposin'  that  Winnie  had  gone  to  the 
Enghsh  lady — supposin'  that  she  know'd  where  to  find  her — 
the  lady  'ud  never  ha'  let  her  go  away,  she  was  so  fond  on 
her.  It  was  Miss  Dalrymple  as  sp'ilt  Winnie,  a-givin'  her 
lady-notions." 

However,  I  determined  to  see  Miss  Dalrymple,  and 
started  alone  for  Carnarvon  at  once.  By  making  inquiries 
at  the  Carnarvon  post  office  I  found  Miss  Dalrymple,  a  pale- 
faced,  careworn  lady  of  extraordinary  culture,  who  evinced 
the  greatest  affection  for  Winifred.  She  had  seen  nothing 
of  her,  and  was  much  distressed  at  the  fragments  of  Winv 
fred's  story  which  I  thought  it  well  to  give  her.  When  she 
bade  me  good-bye,  she  said:  "I  know  something  of  your 
family.  I  know  your  mother  and  aunt.  The  sweet  girl  you 
are  seeking  is  in  my  judgment  one  of  the  most  gifted  young 
women  living.  Her  education,  as  you  may  be  aware,  she 
owes  mainly  to  me.  But  she  took  to  every  kind  of  intel- 
lectual pursuit  by  instinct.  Reared  in  a  poor  Welsh  cottage 
as  she  was,  there  is,  I  believe,  almost  no  place  in  society 
that  she  is  not  fitted  to  fill." 

On  leaving  Carnarvon  I  returned  to  Sinfi  Lovell. 

But  why  should  I  weary  the  reader  by  a  detailed  acount 
of  my  w^anderings  and  searchings,  with  my  strange  guide 
that  day,  and  the  next,  and  the  next?  Why  should  I  burthen 
him  with  the  mental  agonies  I  suffered  as  Sinfi  and  I,  dur- 
ing the  following  days,  explored  the  country  for  miles  and 
miles — right  away  beyond  the  Cross  Foxes,  as  far  as  Dol- 
gelley  and  the  region  of  Cader  Idris  ?  At  last,  one  evening, 
when  I  and  Rhona  Boswell  and  some  of  her  family  were 
walking  down  Snowdon  towards  Llanbcris,  Sinfi  announced 
her  conviction  that  Winifred  was  no  longer  in  the  Snowdon 
region  at  all,  perhaps  not  even  in  Wales  at  all. 

"You  mean,  I  suppose,  that  she  is  dead,"  I  said. 

"Dead?"  said  Sinfi,  the  mysterious  sibylline  look  return- 
ing immediately  to  her  face  that  had  just  seemed  so  frank 
and  simple.  "She  ain't  got  to  die;  she's  only  got  to  beg. 
But  I  shall  ha'  to  leave  you  now.  I  can't  do  you  no  more 
good.  And  besides,  my  daddy's  goin'  into  the  Eastern  Coun- 
ties with  the  Welsh  ponies,  and  so  is  Jasper  Bozzell  and 
Rhona.    Videy  and  me  are  goin'  too,  in  course." 

With  deep  regret  and  dismay  I  felt  that  I  must  part  from 
her.    How  well  I  remember  that  eveningf !    I  feel  as  now  I 


156  Aylwin 

wrile  the  delicious  summer  breeze  of  Snovvdon  blowing  on 
my  forehead.  Tlie  sky,  which  for  some  time  had  been  grow- 
ing very  rich,  grew  at  every  moment  rarer  in  colour,  and 
glassed  itself  in  the  tarns  which  shone  with  an  enjoyment  of 
the  beauty  like  the  magic  mirrors  of  Snowdonian  spirits. 
The  loveliness  indeed  was  so  bewitching  that  one  or  two 
of  the  Gypsies — a  race  who  are,  as  I  had  already  noticed, 
among  the  few  uncultivated  people  that  show  a  susceptibil- 
ity to  the  beauties  of  nature — gave  a  long  sigh  of  pleasure, 
and  lingered  at  the  llyn  of  the  triple  echo,  to  see  how  the 
soft  iridescent  opal  brightened  and  shifted  into  sapphire  and 
orange,  and  then  into  green  and  gold.  As  a  small  requital 
of  her  valuable  services  I  offered  her  what  money  I  had 
about  me,  and  promised  to  send  as  much  more  as  she  might 
require  as  soon  as  I  reached  the  hotel  at  Dolgelley,  where  at 
the  moment  my  portmanteau  was  lying  in  the  landlord's 
charge. 

"Me  take  money  for  tryin'  to  find  my  sister,  Winnie 
Wynne?"  said  Sinfi,  in  astonishment  more  than  in  anger. 
"Seein'  reia,  as  I'd  jist  sell  everythink  I've  got  to  find  her,  I 
should  like  to  know  how  many  gold  balansers  [sovereigns] 
'ud  pay  me.  No,  reia,  Winnie  Wynne  ain't  in  Wales  at  all, 
else  I'd  never  give  up  this  patrin-chase.  So  fare  ye  well;" 
and  she  held  out  her  hand,  which  I  grasped,  reluctant  to  let 
it  go. 

"Fare  ye  well,  reia,"  she  repeated,  as  she  walked  swiftly 
away;  "I  wonder  whether  we  shall  ever  meet  agin." 

"Indeed,  I  hope  so,"  I  said. 

Her  sister  Videy,  who  with  Rhona  Boswell  was  walking 
near  us,  was  present  at  the  parting — a  bright-eyed,  dark- 
skinned  little  girl,  a  head  shorter  than  Sinfi.  I  saw  Videy's 
eyes  glisten  greedily  at  sight  of  the  gold,  and,  after  we  had 
parted,  I  was  not  at  all  surprised,  though  I  knew  her  father, 
Panuel  Lovell,  a  frequenter  of  Raxton  fairs,  to  be  a  man  of 
means,  when  she  came  back  and  said,  with  a  coquettish 
smile: 

"Give  the  bright  balansers  to  Lady  Sinfi's  poor  sister,  my 
rei;  give  the  balansers  to  the  poor  Gypsy,  my  rei." 

Rhona,  however,  instead  of  joining  Videy  in  the  prayer 
for  backsheesh,  ran  down  the  path  in  the  footsteps  of  Sinfi. 

What  money  I  had  about  me  I  was  carrying  loose  in  my 
waistcoat  pocket,  and  I  pulled  it  out,  gold  and  silver  to- 
gether.   I  picked  out  the  sovereigns  (five)  and  gave  them  to 


Winifred's  Dukkeripen  157 

her,  retaining  half-a-sovereign  and  the  silver  for  my  use 
before  returning  to  the  hotel  at  Dolgelley.  Videy  took  the 
sovereigns  and  then  pointed,  with  a  dazzling  smile,  to  the 
half-sovereign,  saying,  "Give  Lady  Sinfi's  poor  sister  the 
posh  balanser  [half-sovereign],  my  rei." 

I  gave  her  the  half-sovereign,  when  she  immediately 
pointed  to  a  half-crown  in  my  hand,  and  said:  "Give  the  poor 
Gypsy  the  posh-courna,  my  rei." 

So  grateful  was  I  to  the  very  name  of  Lovell,  that  I  was 
hesitating  whether  to  do  this,  when  I  was  suddenly  aware 
of  the  presence  of  Sinfi,  who  had  returned  with  Rhona.  In 
a  moment  Videy's  wrist  was  in  a  grip  I  had  become  familiar 
with,  and  the  money  fell  to  the  ground.  Sinfi  pointed  to 
the  money  and  said  some  words  in  Romany.  Videy  stooped 
and  picked  the  coins  up  in  evident  alarm.  Sinfi  then  said 
some  more  words  in  Romany,  whereupon  Videy  held  out 
the  money  to  me.  I  felt  it  best  to  receive  it,  though  Sinfi 
never  once  looked  at  me;  and  I  could  not  tell  what  ex- 
pression her  own  honest  face  wore,  whether  of  deadly  anger 
or  mortal  shame.  The  two  sisters  walked  ofif  in  silence  to- 
gether, while  Rhona  set  up  a  kind  of  war-dance  behind 
them,  and  the  three  went  down  the  path. 

In  a  few  minutes  Sinfi  again  returned  and,  pointing  in 
great  excitement  to  the  sunset  sky,  cried:  "Look,  look!  The 
Dukkeripen  of  the  trushul."*  And,  indeed,  the  sunset  was 
now  making  a  spectacle  such  as  might  have  aroused  a 
spasm  of  admiration  in  the  most  prosaic  breast.  As  I  looked 
at  it  and  then  turned  to  look  at  Sinfi's  noble  features,  illu- 
mined and  spiritualized  by  a  light  that  seemed  more  than 
earthly,  a  new  feeling  came  upon  me  as  though  y  Wyddfa 
and  the  clouds  were  joining  in  a  prophecy  of  hope. 


VII. 

After  losing  Sinfi  I  hired  some  men  to  assist  me  in  my 
search.  Day  after  day  did  we  continue  the  quest ;  but  no  trace 
of  Winifred  could  be  found.  The  universal  opinion  was 
that  she  had  taken  sudden  alarm  at  something,  lost  her  foot- 
hold and  fallen  down  a  precipice,  as  so  many  unfortunate 
tourists  had  done  in  North  Wales. 
*Cross. 


158  Aylwin 

One  day  I  and  one  of  my  men  met,  on  a  spur  of  the 
Glyder,  the  tourist  of  the  flint  implements  with  whom  I  had 
conversed  at  Bettws  y  Coed.  He  was  alone,  geologising  or 
else  searching  for  flint  implements  on  the  hills.  Evidently 
my  haggard  appearance  startled  him.  But  when  he  learnt 
what  was  my  trouble  he  became  deeply  interested.  He  told 
me  that  the  day  after  our  meeting  at  the  ''Royal  Oak," 
Bettws  y  Coed,  he  had  met  a  wild-looking  girl  as  he  was 
using  his  geologist's  hammer  on  the  mountains.  She  was 
bare-headed,  and  had  taken  fright  at  him,  and  had  run 
madly  in  the  direction  of  the  most  dangerous  chasm  on  the 
range;  he  had  pursued  her,  hoping  to  save  her  from  destruc- 
tion, but  lost  sight  of  her  close  to  the  chasm's  brink.  The 
expression  on  his  face  told  me  what  his  thoughts  were  as 
to  her  fate.  He  accompanied  me  to  the  chasm.  It  was  in- 
deed a  dreadful  place.  We  got  to  the  bottom  by  a  winding 
path,  and  searched  till  dusk  among  the  rocks  and  torrents, 
finding  nothing.  But  I  felt  that  in  wild  and  ragged  pits  like 
those,  covered  here  and  there  with  rough  and  shaggy  brush- 
wood, and  full  of  wild  cascades  and  deep  pools,  a  body  might 
well  be  concealed  till  doomsday. 

My  kind-hearted  companion  accompanied  me  for  some 
miles,  and  did  his  best  to  dispel  my  gloom  by  his  lively 
and  intelligent  talk.  We  parted  at  Pen  y  Gwryd.  I  never 
saw  him  again.  I  never  knew  his  name.  Should  these  lines 
ever  come  beneath  his  eyes  he  will  know  that  though  the 
great  ocean  of  human  life  rolls  between  his  life-vessel  and 
mine,  I  have  not  forgotten  how  and  where  once  we  touched. 

But  how  could  I  rest?  Though  Hope  herself  was  laughing 
my  hopes  to  scorn,  how  could  I  rest?  How  could  I  cease 
to  search? 

Bitter  as  it  was  to  wander  about  the  hills  teasing  my  soul 
by  delusions  which  other  people  must  fain  smile  at,  it  would 
have  been  more  bitter  still  to  accept  for  certainty  the  in- 
tolerable truth  that  Winifred  had  died  famished,  or  that  her 
beloved  body  was  a  mangled  corpse  at  the  bottom  of  a  cliflf. 
If  the  reader  does  not  understand  this,  it  is  because  he  finds 
it  impossible  to  understand  a  sorrow  like  mine.  I  refused 
to  return  to  Raxton,  and  took  Mrs.  Davies's  cottage,  which 
was  unoccupied,  and  lived  there  throughout  the  autumn. 
Every  day,  wet  or  dry,  I  used  to  sally  out  on  the  Snow- 
donian  range,  just  as  though  she  had  been  lost  but  yester- 
day,   making   inquiries,   bribing   the   good-natured    Welsh 


Winifred's   Dukkeripen  159 

people  (who  needed  no  bribing)  to  aid  me  in  a  search  which 
to  them  must  have  seemed  monomaniacal. 

The  peasants  and  farmers  all  knew  me.  "Sut  mac  dy 
galon?"  (How  is  thy  heart?)  they  would  say  in  the  beautiful 
Welsh  phrase  as  I  met  them.  "How  is  thy  heart,  indeed!" 
I  would  sigh  as  I  went  on  my  way. 

Before  I  went  to  Wales  in  search  of  Winifred  I  had  never 
set  foot  in  the  Principality.  Before  I  left  it  there  was  scarcely 
a  Welshman  who  knew  more  familiarly  than  I  every  mile 
of  the  Snowdonian  country.  Never  a  trace  of  Winifred 
could  I  find. 

At  the  end  of  the  autumn  I  left  the  cottage  and  removed 
to  Pen  y  gwryd,  as  a  comparatively  easy  point  from  which 
I  could  reach  the  mountain  tarn  where  I  had  breakfasted 
with  Winifred  on  that  morning.  Afterwards  I  took  up  my 
abode  at  a  fishing  inn,  and  here  I  stayed  the  winter  through 
— scarcely  hoping  to  find  her  now,  yet  chained  to  Snowdon. 
After  my  labours  during  the  day,  scrambling  among  slippery 
boulders  and  rugged  rocks,  crossing  swollen  torrent-beds, 
amid  rain  and  ice  and  snow  and  mist  such  as  frightened 
away  the  Welsh  themselves — after  thus  wandering,  because 
I  could  not  leave  the  region,  it  was  a  comfort  to  me  to  turn 
into  the  low,  black-beamed  room  of  the  fishing-inn,  with 
drying  hams,  flitches  of  bacon,  and  fishing-rods  for  deco- 
rations, and  hear  the  simple-hearted  Cymric  folk  talking, 
sometimes  in  Welsh,  sometimes  in  English,  but  always  with 
that  kindness  and  that  courtesy  which  go  to  make  the  poetry 
of  Welsh  common  life. 

Meantime,  I  had,  as  I  need  scarcely  say,  spared  neither 
trouble  nor  expense  in  advertising  for  information  about 
Winifred  in  the  Welsh  and  the  West  of  England  newspapers. 
I  offered  rewards  for  her  discovery,  and  the  result  was 
merely  that  I  was  pestered  by  letters  from  people  (some  of 
them  tourists  of  education)  suggesting  traces  and  clues  of  so 
wild,  and  often  of  so  fantastic  a  kind,  that  I  arrived  at  the 
conviction  that  of  all  man's  faculties  his  imagination  is  the 
most  lawless,  and  at  the  same  time  the  most  powerful.  It 
was  perfectly  inconceivable  to  me  that  the  writers  of  some 
of  these  letters  were  not  themselves  demented,  so  wild  or 
so  fanciful  were  the  clues  they  suggested.  Yet,  when  I  came 
to  meet  them  and  talk  with  them  (as  I  sometimes  did),  I 
found  these  correspondents  to  be  of  the  ordinary  prosaic 
British  type.   All  my  efforts  were  to  no  purpose. 


i6o  Aylwin 

Among  my  longer  journeys  from  the  fishing-inn,  the  most 
frequent  were  those  to  Hollyvvell,  near  Flint,  to  the  Well  of 
St.  Winifred — the  reader  need  not  be  told  why.  He  will 
recollect  how  little  Winnie,  while  plying  me  with  strawber- 
ries, had  sagely  recommended  the  holy  water  of  this  famous 
well  as  a  "cure  for  crutches."  She  had  actually  brought  me 
some  of  it  in  a  lemonade  bottle  when  she  returned  to  Raxton 
after  her  first  absence,  and  had  insisted  on  rubbing  my 
ankle  with  it.  She  had,  as  I  afterwards  learnt  from  her 
father,  importuned  and  at  last  induced  her  aunt  (evidently 
a  good-natured  and  worthy  soul)  to  take  her  to  visit  a  rela- 
tive in  Holywell,  a  journey  of  many  miles,  for  the  purpose 
of  bringing  home  with  her  a  bottle  of  the  holy  water.  When- 
ever any  ascent  of  the  gangways  had  proved  to  be  more  suc- 
cessful than  usual,  Winifred  had  attributed  the  good  luck  to 
the  virtues  contained  in  her  lemonade  bottle.  Ah!  super- 
stition seemed  pretty  enough  then. 

At  first  in  the  forlorn  hope  that  memory  might  have  at- 
tracted her  thither,  and  afterwards  because  there  was  a 
fascination  for  me  in  the  well  on  account  of  its  association 
with  her,  my  pilgrimages  to  Holywell  were  as  frequent  as 
those  of  any  of  the  afflicted  devotees  of  the  olden  time, 
whose  crutches  left  behind  testified  to  the  genuineness  of  the 
Saint's  pretensions.  Into  that  well  Winifred's  innocent 
young  eyes  had  gazed — gazed  in  the  full  belief  that  the  holy 
water  would  cure  me — gazed  in  the  full  belief  that  the  crim- 
son stains  made  by  the  byssus  on  the  stones  were  stains  left 
by  her  martyr-namesake's  blood.  Where  had  she  stCKxl 
when  she  came  and  looked  into  the  well  and  the  rivulet?  On 
what  exact  spot  had  rested  her  feet — those  little  rosy  feet 
that  on  the  sea-sands  used  to  flash  through  the  receding 
foam  as  she  chased  the  ebbing  billows  to  amuse  me,  while  I 
sat  between  my  crutches  in  the  cove  looking  on?  It  was,  I 
found,  possible  to  gaze  in  that  water  till  it  seemed  alive  with 
her — seemed  to  hold  the  reflection  of  the  little  face  which 
years  ago  peered  anxiously  into  it  for  the  behoof  of  the 
crippled  child-lover  pining  for  her  at  Raxton.  and  unable  to 
"get  up  or  down  the  gangways  without  her." 

Holywell  grew  to  have  a  fascination  for  me,  and  in  the 
following  spring  I  left  the  fishing-inn  beneath  Snowdon, 
and  took  rooms  in  this  interesting  old  town. 


Winifred's  Dukkeripen  i6i 


VIII. 

One  day,  near  the  rivulet  that  runs  from  St.  Winifred's 
Well,  I  suddenly  encountered  Sinfi  Lovell. 

"Sinfi,"  I  said,  "she's  dead,  she's  surely  dead." 

"I  tell  ye,  brother,  she  ain't  g'ot  to  die!"  said  Sinfi,  as  she 
came  and  stood  beside  me.  "Winnie  Wynne's  on'y  got  to 
beg  her  bread.    She's  alive." 

"Where  is  she?"  I  cried.    "Oh,  Sinfi,  I  shall  go  mad!" 

"There  you're  too  fast  for  me,  brother,"  said  she,  "when 
you  ask  me  zvhere  she  is;  but  she's  alive,  and  I  ain't  come 
quite  emp'y-handed  of  news  about  her,  brother." 

"Oh,  tell  me!"  said  I. 

"Well,"  said  Sinfi,  "I've  just  met  one  of  our  people,  Euri 
Lovell,  as  says  that,  the  very  mornin'  after  we  seed  her  on 
the  hills,  he  met  her  close  to  Carnarvon  at  break  of  day." 

"Then  she  did  go  to  Carnarvon,"  I  said.  "What  a  dis- 
tance for  those  dear  feet !" 

"Euri  knowed  her  by  sight,"  said  Sinfi,  "but  didn't  know 
about  her  bein'  under  the  cuss,  so  he  jist  let  her  pass,  sayin' 
to  hisself,  'She  looks  jist  like  a  crazy  wench  this  mornin', 
does  Winnie  Wynne.'  Euri  was  a-goin'  through  Carnarvon 
to  Bangor,. on  to  Conway  and  Chester,  and  never  heerd  a 
word  about  her  bein'  lost  till  he  got  back,  six  weeks  ago." 

"I  must  go  to  Carnarvon  at  once,"  said  I. 

"No  use,  brother,"  said  Sinfi.  "If  /  han't  pretty  well 
worked  Carnarvon,  it's  a  pity.  I've  been  there  the  last  three 
weeks  on  the  patrin-chasc,  and  not  a  patrin  could  I  find. 
It's  my  belief  as  she  never  went  into  Carnarvon  town  at  all, 
but  turned  off  and  went  into  Llanbeblig  churchyard." 

"Why  do  you  think  so,  Sinfi  ?" 

"  'Cause  her  aunt,  bein'  a  Carnarvon  woman,  was  buried 
among  her  own  kin  in  Llanbeblig  churchyard.  Leastwise, 
you  won't  find  a  ghose  of  a  trace  on  her  at  Carnarvon,  and 
it'll  be  a  long  kind  of  a  wild-goose  chase  from  here ;  but  if 
you  zvill  go,  go  you  must." 

She  could  not  dissuade  me  from  starting  for  Carnarvon  at 
once;  and,  as  I  would  go,  she  seemed  to  take  it  as  a  matter 
of  course  that  she  nnist  accompaiiv  nie.  Our  journey  was 
partly  by  coach  and  partly  afoot. 


i62  Aylwin 

My  first  impulse  on  nearing  Carnarvon  was  to  go — I 
could  not  have  said  why — to  Llanbeblig  churchyard. 

Among  the  group  of  graves  of  the  Davieses  we  easily 
found  that  of  Winifred's  aunt,  beneath  a  newly-planted 
arbutus  tree.  After  looking  at  the  modest  mound  for  some 
time,  and  wondering  where  Winifred  had  stood  when  the 
coffin  was  lowered — as  I  had  wondered  where  she  had 
stood  at  St.  Winifred's  Well — I  roamed  about  the  church- 
yard with  Sinfi  in  silence  for  a  time. 

At  last  she  said  :  "I  mind  comin'  here  wonst  with  Winnie, 
and  I  mind  her  sayin' :  'There's  no  place  I  should  so  much 
like  to  be  buried  in  as,  in  Llanbeblig  churchyard.  The 
graves  of  them  as  die  unmarried  do  look  so  beautiful.'  " 

"How  did  she  know  the  graves  of  those  who  die  un- 
married ?" 

Sinfi  looked  over  the  churchyard  and  waved  her  hand, 

"Wherever  you  see  them  beautiful  primroses,  and  them 
shinin'  snowdrops,  and  them  sweet-smellin'  vi'lets,  that's 
alius  the  grave  of  a  child  or  else  of  a  young  Gorgie  as  died  a 
maid ;  and  wherever  you  see  them  laurel  trees,  and  box 
trees,  and  'butus  trees,  that's  the  grave  of  a  pusson  as  ain't 
nuther  child  nor  maid,  an'  the  Welsh  folk  think  nobody  else 
on'y  child'n  an'  maids  ain't  quite  good  enough  to  be  turned 
into  the  blessed  flowers  o'  spring." 

"Next  to  the  sea,"  I  said,  "she  loved  the  flowers  of 
spring." 

"And  /  should  like  to  be  buried  here  too,  brother,"  said 
Sinfi,  as  we  left  the  churchyard. 

"But  a  fine  strong  girl  like  you,  Sinfi,  is  not  very  likely  to 
die  unmarried  while  there  are  Romany  bachelors  about." 

"There  ain't  a-many  Romany  chals,"  she  said,  "as  du'st 
marry  Sinfi  Lovell,  even  supposin'  as  Sinfi  Lovell  'ud  marry 
them,  an'  a  Gorgio  she'll  never  marry — an'  never  can  marry. 
And  to  lay  here  aneath  the  flowers  o'  spring,  wi'  the  Welsh 
sun  a-shinin'  on  'em  as  it's  a-shinin'  now,  that  must  be  a 
sweet  kind  o'  bed,  brother,  and  for  anythink  as  I  knows  on, 
a  Romany  chi  'ud  make  as  sweet  a  bed  of  vi'lets  as  the  beau- 
tifullest  Gorgie-wench  as  wur  ever  bred  in  Carnarvon,  an' 
as  shinin'  a  bunch  o'  snowdrops  as  ever  the  Welsh  spring 
knows  how  to  grow." 

At  any  other  time  this  extraordinary  girl's  talk  would 
have  interested  me  greatly ;  rwiv,  nothing  had  any  interest 
for  mc  tliat  did  not  bear  directly  upon  the  fate  of  Winifred. 


Winifred's  Dukkeripen  163 

Little  dreaming  how  this  quiet  churchyard  had  lately 
been  one  of  the  battle  grounds  of  that  all-conquering 
power  (Destiny,  or  Circumstance?)  which  had  governed 
Winnie's  life  and  mine,  I  went  with  Sinfi  into  Carnarvon,  and 
made  inquiry  everywhere,  but  without  the  slightest  result. 
This  occupied  several  days,  during  which  time  Sinfi  stayed 
with  some  acquaintances  encamped  near  Carnarvon,  while 
I  lodged  at  a  little  hotel. 

"You  don't  ask  me  how  you  happened  to  meet  me  at 
Holywell,  brother,"  said  she  to  me,  as  we  stood  looking 
across  the  water  at  Carnarvon  Castle,  over  whose  mighty 
battlements  the  moon  was  fighting  with  an  army  of  black, 
angry  clouds,  which  a  wild  wind  was  leading  furiously 
against  her — "you  don't  ask  me  how  you  happened  to  meet 
me  at  Holywell,  nor  how  long  I've  been  back  agin  in  dear 
old  Wales,  nor  what  I've  been  a-doin'  on  since  we  parted ; 
but  that's  nuther  here  nor  there.  I'll  tell  you  what  I  think 
about  Winnie  an'  the  chances  o'  findin'  her,  brother,  and 
that'll  intrust  you  more." 

"What  is  it,  Sinfi?"  I  cried,  waking  up  from  the  reminis- 
cences, bitter  and  sweet,  the  bright  moon  had  conjured  up 
in  my  mind. 

"Well,  brother,  Winnie,  you  see,  was  very  fond  o'  me." 

"She  was,  and  good  reason  for  being  fond  of  you  she  had." 

"Well,  brother,  bein'  very  fond  o'  me,  that  made  her  very 
fond  o'  all  Romanies ;  and  though  she  took  agin  me  at  fust, 
arter  the  cuss,  as  she  took  agin  you  because  we  was  her 
closest  friends  (that's  what  Mr.  Blyth  said,  you  know,  they 
alius  do),  she  wouldn't  take  agin  Romanies  in  general.  No, 
she'd  take  to  Romanies  in  general,  and  she'd  go  hangin' 
about  the  different  camps,  and  she'd  soon  be  snapped  up, 
being  so  comely,  and  they'd  make  a  lot  o'  money  out  on  her 
jist  havin'  her  with  'cm  for  the  'dukkerin'." 

"I  don't  understand  you,"  I  said. 

"Well,  you  know,"  said  Sinli,  "anybody  as  is  under  the 
cuss  is  half  with  the  sperrits  and  half  with  us,  and  so  can 
tell  the  real  'dukkcrin'.'  Only  it's  bad  for  a  Romany  to  have 
another  Romany  in  the  'place'  as  is  under  the  cuss ;  but  it 
don't  matter  a  bit  about  having  a  Gorgio  among  your  breed 
as  is  under  a  cuss;  for  Gorgio  cuss  can't  never  touch 
Romany." 

"Then  you  feel  qiu'le  sure  she's  not  dead,  Sinfi?" 

"She's  jist  as  live  as  you  an'  nic  somewheres,  brother. 


164  Aylwin 

There's  two  things  as  keeps  her  ahve :  there's  the  cuss,  as 
says  she's  got  to  beg  her  bread,  and  there's  the  dukkeripen 
o'  the  Golden  Hand  on  Snowdon,  as  says  she's  got  to  marry 
you." 

"But,  Sinfi,  I  mean  that,  apart  from  all  this  superstition  of 
yours,  you  have  reason  to  think  she's  alive?  and  you  think 
she's  with  the  Romanies  ?" 

"I  know  she's  alive,  and  I  think  she's  with  the  Romanies. 
She  mtist  be,  brother,  with  the  Shaws,  or  the  Lees,  or  the 
Stanleys,  or  the  Bozzells,  or  some  on  'em." 

"Then,"  said  I,  "I'll  turn  Gypsy ;  I'll  be  the  second  Aylwin 
to  own  allegiance  to  the  blood  of  Fenella  Stanley.  I'll  scour 
Great  Britain  till  I  find  her." 

"You  can  jine  us  if  you  like,  'brother.  We're  goin'  all 
through  the  West  of  England  with  the  gries.  You're  fond  o' 
fishin'  and  shootin',  brother,  an'  though  you're  a  Gorgio, 
you  can't  help  bein'  a  Gorgio,  and  you  ain't  a  mumply  'un, 
as  I've  said  to  Jim  Burton  many's  the  time ;  and  if  you  can't 
give  the  left-hand  body-blow  like  me,  there  ain't  a-many 
Gorgios  nor  yit  a-many  Romanies  as  knows  better  nor  you 
what  their  fistes  wur  made  for,  an'  altogether,  brother,  Beng 
te  tassa  mandi  if  I  shouldn't  be  right-on  proud  to  see  ye  jine 
our  breed.  There's  a  coachmaker  down  in  Chester,  and  he's 
got  for  sale  the  beautifullest  livin'-waggin  in  all  England. 
It's  shiny  orange-yellow  with  red  window-blinds,  and  if 
there's  a  colour  in  any  rainbow  as  can't  be  seed  in  the  panels 
o'  the  front  door,  it's  a  kind  o'  rainbow  I  ain't  never  seed 
nowheres.  He  made  it  for  Jericho  Bozzell,  the  rich  Griengro 
as  so  often  stays  at  Raxton  and  at  Gypsy  Dell ;  but  Rhona 
Bozzell  hates  a  waggin  and  alius  will  sleep  in  a  tent.  They 
do  say  as  the  Prince  o'  Wales  wants  to  buy  that  livin'-wag- 
gin, only  he  can't  spare  the  balansers  just  now — his  family 
bein'  so  big  an'  times  bein'  so  bad.  How  much  money  ha' 
you  got?  Can  you  stan'  a  hundud  an'  fifty  gold  balansers 
for  the  waggin  besides  the  fixins?" 

"Sinfi,"  I  said,  "I'm  prepared  to  spend  more  than  that  in 
seeking  Winnie." 

"Dordi,  brother,  you  must  be  as  rich  as  my  dad,  an'  he's 
the  richest  Griengro  arter  Jericho  Bozzell.  You  an'  me'll  jist 
go  down  to  Chester,"  she  continued,  her  eyes  sparkling 
with  delight  at  the  prospect  of  bargaining  for  the  waggon, 
"an'  we'll  fix  up  sich  a  livin'-waggin  as  no  Romany  rei  never 
had  afore," 


Winifred's  Dukkeripen  165 

"Agreed !"  I  said,  wringing  her  hand. 

"An'  now  you  an'  me's  right  pals,"  said  Sinfi. 

We  went  to  Chester,  and  I  became  owner  of  the  famous 
"hvin'-waggin"  coveted  (according  to  Sinfi)  by  the  great 
personage  whom,  on  account  of  his  name,  she  always  spoke 
of  as  a  rich,  powerful,  but  mysterious  and  invisible  Welsh- 
man. One  of  the  monthly  cheese-fairs  was  going  on  in  the 
Linen  Hall.  Among  the  rows  of  Welsh  carts  standing  in 
front  of  the  "Old  Yacht  Inn,"  Sinfi  introduced  me  to  a 
"Griengro"  (one  of  the  Gypsy  Locks  of  Gloucestershire) 
of  vv^hom  I  bought  a  bay  mare  of  extraordinary  strength 
and  endurance. 


IX. 

It  was,  then,  to  find  Winifred  that  I  joined  the  Gypsies. 
And  yet  I  will  not  deny  that  affinity  with  the  kinsfolk  of  my 
ancestress  Fenella  Stanley  must  have  had  something  to  do 
with  this  passage  in  my  eccentric  life.  That  strain  of 
Romany  blood  which,  according  to  my  mother's  theory, 
had  much  to  do  with  drawing  Percy  Aylwin  and  Rhona 
Boswell  together,  was  alive  and  potent  in  my  own  veins. 

But  I  must  pause  here  to  say  a  few  words  about  Sinfi 
Lovell.  Some  of  my  readers  must  have  already  recognised 
her  as  a  famous  character  in  bohemian  circles.  Sinfi's 
father  was  a  "Griengro,"  that  is  to  say,  a  horse-dealer.  She 
was,  indeed,  none  other  than  that  "Fiddling  Sinfi"  who  be- 
came famous  in  many  parts  of  England  and  Wales  as  a 
violinist,  and  also  as  the  only  performer  on  the  old  Welsh 
stringed  instrument  called  the  "crwth,"  or  cruth.  Most 
Gypsies  are  musical,  but  Sinfi  was  a  genuine  musical  genius. 
Having  become,  through  the  good  nature  of  Winifred's 
aunt  Mrs.  Davies,  the  possessor  of  a  crwth,  and  having  been 
taught  by  her  the  unique  capabilities  of  that  rarely  seen  in- 
strument, she  soon  learnt  the  art  of  fascinating  her  Welsh 
patrons  by  the  strange,  wild  strains  she  could  draw  from  it. 
This  obsolete  six-stringed  instrument  (with  two  of  the 
strings  reaching  beyond  the  key-board,  used  as  drones  and 
struck  by  the  thumb,  the  bow  only  being  used  on  the  other 
four,  and  a  bridge  placed,  not  at  right  angles  to  the  sides 
of  the  instrument,  but  in  an  oblique  direction),  though  in 


1 66  Aylwin 

some  important  respects  inferior  to  the  violin,  is  in  other 
respects  superior  to  it.  Heard  among  the  peaks  of  Snow- 
don,  as  I  heard  them  during  our  search  for  Winifred,  the 
notes  of  the  crwth  have  a  wonderful  wildness  and  pathos. 
It  is  supposed  to  have  the  power  of  drawing  the  spirits  when 
a  maiden  sings  to  its  accompaniment  a  mysterious  old 
Cymric  song  or  incantation. 

Among  her  own  people  it  was  as  a  seeress,  as  an  adept  in 
the  real  dukkering — the  dukkering  for  the  Romanies,  as 
distinguished  from  the  false  dukkering,  the  dukkering  for 
the  Gorgios — that  Sinfi's  fame  was  great.  She  had  travelled 
over  nearly  all  England — wherever,  in  short,  there  were 
horse-fairs — and  was  familiar  with  London,  where  in  the 
studios  of  artists  she  was  in  request  as  a  face  model  of 
extraordinary  value.  Nor  were  these  all  the  characteristics 
that  distinguished  her  from  the  common  herd  of  Romany 
chies :  she  was  one  of  the  few  Gypsies  of  either  sex  who 
could  speak  with  equal  fluency  both  the  English  and  Welsh 
Romanes,  and  she  was  in  the  habit  sometimes  of  mixing  the 
two  dialects  in  a  most  singular  way.  Though  she  had  lived 
much  in  Wales,  and  had  a  passionate  love  of  Snowdon,  she 
belonged  to  a  famous  branch  of  the  Lovells  whose  haunt 
had  for  ages  been  in  Wales  and  also  the  East  Midlands,  and 
she  had  caught  entirely  the  accent  of  that  district. 

Among  artists  in  London,  as  I  afterwards  learnt,  she  often 
went  by  the  playful  name  of  "Lady  Sinfi  Lovell,"  for  the 
following  reason : 

She  was  extremely  proud,  and  believed  the  "Kaulo  Cam- 
loes"  to  represent  the  aristocracy  not  only  of  the  Gypsies, 
but  of  the  world.  Moreover,  she  had  of  late  been  brought 
into  close  contact  with  a  certain  travelling  band  of  Hun- 
garian Gypsy-musicians,  who  visited  England  some  time 
ago.  Intercourse  with  these  had  fostered  her  pride  in  a 
curious  manner.  The  musicians  are  the  most  intelligent 
and  most  widely-travelled  not  only  of  the  Hungarian  Gyp- 
sies, but  of  all  the  Romany  race.  They  arc  darker  than  the 
satoros  czijanyok,  or  tented  Gypsies.  The  Lovells  being 
the  darkest  of  all  the  Gypsies  of  Great  Britain  (and  the  most 
handsome,  hence  called  Kaulo  Camloes),  it  was  easy  to 
make  out  an  affinity  closer  than  common  between  the  Lov- 
ells and  the  Hungarian  musicians.  Sinfi  heard  much  talk 
among  the  Hungarians  of  the  splendours  of  the  early  lead- 
ers of  the  continental  Romanics.    vShe  was  told  of  Romany 


Winifred's  Dukkeripen  167 

kings,  dukes  and  counts.  She  accepted,  with  that  entire 
faith  which  characterised  her,  the  stories  of  the  exploits  of 
Duke  Michael,  Duke  Andreas,  Duke  Panuel,  and  the  rest. 
It  only  needed  a  hint  from  one  of  her  continental  friends, 
that  her  father,  Panuel  Lovell,  was  probably  a  descendant 
of  Duke  Panuel,  for  Sinfi  to  consider  him  a  duke.  From 
that  moment  she  felt  as  strongly  as  any  Gorgie  ever  felt 
the  fine  sentiment  expressed  in  the  phrase,  noblesse  oblige; 
and  to  hear  her  say,  'Tm  a  duke's  chavi  [daughter],  and 
mustn't  do  so  and  so,"  was  a  delightful  and  refreshing  ex- 
perience to  me.  Poor  Panuel  groaned  under  these  honours, 
for  Sinfi  insisted  now  on  his  dressing  in  a  brown  velveteen 
coat,  scarlet  waistcoat  with  gold  coins  for  buttons,  and  the 
high-crowned  ribbon-bedizened  hat  which  prosperous  Gyp- 
sies once  used  to  wear.  She  seemed  to  consider  that  her 
sister  Videy  (whose  tastes  were  low  for  a  Welsh  Gypsy)  did 
not  belong  to  the  high  aristocracy,  though  born  of  the  same 
father  and  mother.  Moreover,  "dook"  in  Romanes  means 
spirit,  ghost,  and  very  likely  Sinfi  found  some  power  of  asso- 
ciation in  this  fact ;  for  Videy  was  a  born  sceptic. 

One  of  the  special  charms  of  Gypsy  life  is  tliat  a  man  fully 
admitted  into  the  Romany  brotherhood  can  be  on  terms  of 
close  intimacy  with  a  Gypsy  girl  without  awaking  the  small- 
est suspicion  of  love-making  or  flirtation ;  at  least  it  was  so 
in  my  time. 

Under  my  father's  will,  a  considerable  legacy  had  come  to 
me,  and,  after  going  to  London  to  receive  this,  I  made  the 
circuit  of  the  West  of  England  with  Sinfi's  people.  No  sign 
whatever  of  Winifred  did  I  find  in  any  of  the  camps.  I  was 
for  returning  to  Wales,  where  my  thoughts  always  were ; 
but  I  could  not  expect  Sinfi  to  leave  her  family,  so  I  started 
thither  alone,  leaving  my  waggon  in  their  charge.  Before 
I  reached  Wales,  however,  I  met  in  the  eastern  part  of 
Cheshire,  not  far  from  Morcton  Hall,  some  English  Lees, 
with  whom  I  got  into  talk  about  the  Hungarian  musicians, 
who  were  here  tlicn  on  anotlicr  fiying  visit  to  England. 
Something  that  dropped  from  one  of  the  Lees  as  to  the 
traditions  and  superstitions  of  the  Hungarian  Gypsies  with 
regard  to  people  sufifering  from  dementia  set  me  to  think- 
ing; and  at  last  I  came  to  the  conclusion  that  if  I  really  be- 
lieved Winifred  to  have  talcen  shelter  among  the  Romanies, 
it  would  be  absurd  not  to  folltnv  lip  a  band  like  these  Hun- 
garians.    Accordingly  I  changed  my  course,  and  followed 


1 68  Aylwin 

them  up ;  but  again  without  finding  the  sUghtest  clue. 
Eventually  I  returned  to  Wales,  partly  because  that  seemed 
to  'be  even  yet  the  most  likely  region  to  afford  some  trace, 
partly  because  I  should  there  again  see  Sinfi  Lovell  on  her 
return  from  England, 

My  health  was  now  much  impaired  by  sleeplessness  (the 
inevitable  result  of  my  anxiety),  and  by  a  narcotic,  which 
from  the  commencement  of  my  troubles  I  had  been  in  the 
habit  of  taking  in  ever-increasing  doses — a  terrible  narcotic, 
one  of  whose  multitudinous  effects  is  that  of  sending  all  the 
patient's  thoughts  circling  around  one  central  idea  like  plan- 
ets round  the  sun.  Painful  and  agonizing  as  had  been  my 
suspense, — my  oscillation  between  hope  and  dread, — dur- 
ing my  wanderings  with  the  Lovells,  these  wanderings  had 
not  been  without  their  moments  of  comfort,  for  all  of  which 
I  had  been  indebted  to  Sinfi.  She  would  sit  with  me  in  an 
English  lane,  under  a  hedge  or  tree,  on  a  balmy  summer 
evening,  or  among  the  primroses,  wild  hyacinths,  butter- 
cups and  daisies  of  the  sweet  meadows,  chattering  her 
reminiscences  of  Winifred.  She  would  mostly  end  by  say- 
ing: "Winnie  was  very  fond  on  ye,  brother,  and  we  shall 
find  her  yit.  The  Golden  Hand  on  Snowdon  wasn't  sent 
there  for  nothink.  The  dukkeripen  says  you'll  marry  her 
yit ;  a  love  like  yourn  can  follow  the  tryenest  patrin  as  ever 
wur  laid."  Then  she  would  play  on  her  crwth  and  say,  "Ah, 
brother,  I  shall  be  able  to  make  this  crwth  bring  ye  a  sight 
o'  Winnie's  livin'  mullo  if  she's  alive,  and  there  ain't  a  sperrit 
of  the  hills  as  wouldn't  answer  to  it." 

Of  Gorgios  generally,  however,  Sinfi  had  at  heart  a  feel- 
ing somewhat  akin  to  dread.    I  could  not  understand  it. 

"Why  do  you  dislike  the  Gorgios,  Sinfi?"  I  said  to  her 
one  day  on  Lake  Ogwen,  after  the  return  of  the  Lovells  to 
Whales.  We  were  trout-fishing  from  a  boat  anchored  to  a 
heavy  block  of  granite  which  she  had  fastened  to  a  rope 
and  heaved  overboard  with  a  strength  that  would  have  sur- 
passed that  of  most  Englishwomen. 

"That's  nuther  here  nor  there,  brother,"  she  replied, 
mysteriously.  So  months  and  months  dragged  by,  and 
brought  no  trace  of  Winifred, 


IV. 

The  Leader  of  the 
Aylwinians 


IV.— THE    LEADER   OF   THE 
AYLWJNIANS 

I. 

One  day  as  Sinfi  and  I  were  strolling  through  the  lovely 
glades  between  Capel  Cvirig  and  Bettws  y  Coed,  on  our  way 
to  a  fishing-place,  we  sat  down  by  a  stream  to  eat  some 
bread  and  cheese  we  had  brought  with  us. 

The  sunlight,  as  it  broke  here  and  there  between  the  thick 
foliage,  was  playing  upon  the  little  cascades  in  such  magical 
fashion — turning  the  water  into  a  torrent  that  seemed  as 
though  molten  rubies  and  sapphires  and  opals  were  ablaze 
in  one  dancing  faery  stream — that  even  the  dark  tragedy 
of  human  life  seemed  enveloped  for  a  moment  in  an  atmos- 
phere of  poetry  and  beauty.  Sinfi  gazed  at  it  silently,  then 
she  said : 

"This  is  the  very  place  where  Winnie  wonst  tried  to  save 
a  hernshaw  as  wur  wounded.  She  wur  tryin'  to  ketch  hold 
on  it,  as  the  water  wur  carryin'  it  along,  and  he  pretty  nigh 
beat  her  to  death  wi'  his  wings  for  her  pains.  It  wur  then  as 
she  come  an'  stayed  along  o'  us  for  a  bit,  an'  she  got  to  be 
as  fond  o'  my  crwth  as  you  he's,  an'  she  used  to  say  that  if 
there  wur  any  music  as  'ud  draw  her  sperrit  back  to  the  airth 
arter  she  wur  dead  it  'ud  be  the  sound  o'  my  crwth;  but 
there  she  v/ur  wrong  as  wrong  could  be:  Romany  music 
could  never  touch  Gorgio  sperrit ;  'tain't  a  bit  likely.  But  it 
can  draw  her  livin'  mullo  [wraith]."  And  as  she  spoke  she 
began  to  play  her  crwth  pizzicato  and  to  sing  the  opening 
bars  of  the  old  Welsh  incantation  which  I  had  heard  on 
Snowdon  on  that  never-to-be  forgotten  morning. 

This,  as  usual,  sent  my  mind  at  once  back  to  the  picture 
of  Fenella  Stanley  calling  round  her  by  the  aid  of  her  music 
the  spirits  of  Snowdon.    And  then  a  strange  hallucination 


172  Aylwin 

came  upon  nie,  that  made  me  clutch  at  Sinfi's  arm.  Close 
by  her,  reflected  in  a  little  glassy  pool  divided  off  from  the 
current  by  a  ring  of  stones,  two  blue  eyes  seemed  gazing. 
Then  the  face  and  the  entire  figure  of  Winifred  appeared, 
but  Winifred  dressed  as  a  beggar  girl  in  rags,  Winifred 
standing  at  a  street  corner  holding  out  matches  for  sale. 

*' Winifred!"  I  exclaimed;  and  then  the  hallucination 
passed,  and  Sinfi's  features  were  reflected  in  the  water.  My 
exclamation  had  the  strangest  effect  upon  Sinfi.  Her  lips, 
which  usually  wore  a  peculiarly  proud  and  fearless  curve, 
quivered,  and  were  losing  the  brilliant  rosebud  redness 
which  mostly  characterised  them.  The  little  blue  tattoo 
rosettes  at  the  corners  of  her  mouth  seemed  to  be  growing 
more  distinct  as  she  gazed  in  the  water  through  eyes  dark 
and  mysterious  as  Night's,  but,  like  Night's  own  eyes, 
ready,  I  thought,  to  call  up  the  throbbing  fires  of  a  million 
stars. 

"What  made  you  cry  out  'Winifred'?"  she  said,  as  the 
music  ceased. 

"What  you  told  me  about  the  spirits  following  the  crwth 
was  causing  the  strangest  dream,"  I  answered.  "I  thought 
I  saw  Winnie's  face  reflected  in  the  water,  and  I  thought  she 
was  in  awful  distress.    And  all  the  time  it  was  your  face." 

"That  wur  her  livin'  mullo,"  said  Sinfi,  solemnly. 

Convinced  though  I  was  that  the  hallucination  was  the 
natural  result  of  Sinfi's  harping  upon  the  literal  fulfilment 
of  the  curse,  it  depressed  me  greatly. 

Close  to  this  beautiful  spot  we  came  suddenly  upon  two 
tourists  sketching.  And  now  occurred  one  of  those  sur- 
prises of  which  I  have  found  that  real  life  is  far  more  full 
than  any  fiction  dares  to  be.  As  we  passed  the  artists  I 
heard  one  call  out  to  the  other,  with  a  "burr"  which  I  will 
not  attempt  to  render,  having  never  lived  in  the  "Black 
Country" : 

"You  have  a  true  eye  for  composition ;  what  do  you  think 
of  this  tree?" 

The  speaker's  remarkable  appearance  attracted  my  atten- 
tion. 

"Well,"  said  I  to  Sinfi,  "that's  the  first  time  I  ever  saw  a 
painter  shaven  and  dressed  in  a  coat  like  a  Quaker's." 

Sinfi  looked  across  at  the  speaker  through  the  curling 
smoke  from  my  pipe,  gave  a  start  of  surprise,  and  then  said  : 
"So  you've  never  seed  himf    That's  because  you're  a  coun- 


The  Leader  of  the  Aylwinians         173 

try  Johnny,  brother,  and  don't  know  nothink  about  Londra 
life.  That's  a  friend  o'  mine  from  Londra  as  has  painted  me 
many's  the  time." 

"Painted  you  ?"  I  said ;  "the  man  in  black,  with  the  gog- 
gle eyes,  squatting  there  under  the  white  umbrella?  What's 
his  name?" 

"That's  the  cel'erated  Mr.  Wilderspin,  an'  he's  painted 
me  many's  the  time,  an'  a  rare  rum  'un  he  is  too.  Dordi !  it 
makes  me  laugh  to  think  on  him.  Most  Gorgios  is  mad, 
more  or  less,  but  he's  the  maddest  'un  I  ever  know'd." 

We  had  by  this  time  got  close  to  the  painter's  companion, 
who,  sitting  upright  on  his  camp-stool,  was  busy  with  his 
brush.  Without  shifting  his  head  to  look  at  us,  or  remov- 
ing his  eyes  from  his  work,  he  said,  in  a  voice  of  striking 
power  and  volume :  "Nothing  but  an  imperfect  experience 
of  life.  Lady  Sinfi,  could  have  made  you  pronounce  our 
friend  there  to  be  the  maddest  Gorgio  living." 

"Dordi !"  exclaimed  Sinfi,  turning  sharply  round  in  great 
astonishment.    "Fancy  seein'  both  on  'em  here !" 

"Mad  our  friend  is,  no  doubt,  Lady  Sinfi,"  said  the 
painter,  without  looking  round,  "but  not  so  mad  as  certain 
illustrious  Gorgios  I  could  name,  some  of  them  born  legis- 
lators and  some  of  them  (apparently)  born  R.A.'s." 

"Who  should  ha'  thought  of  seein'  'em  both  here?"  said 
Sinfi  again. 

"That,"  said  the  painter,  without  even  yet  turning  to  look 
at  us  or  staying  the  movement  of  his  brush,  "is  a  remark 
I  never  make  in  a  little  dot  of  a  world  like  this.  Lady  Sinfi, 
where  I  expect  to  see  everybody  everywhere.  But,  my  dear 
Romany  chi,"  he  continued,  now  turning  slowly  round,  "in 
passing  your  strictures  upon  the  Gorgio  world,  you  should 
remember  that  you  belong  to  a  very  limited  aristocracy,  and 
that  your  remarks  may  probably  fall  upon  ears  of  an  en- 
tirely inferior  and  Gorgio  convolution." 

"No  offence,  I  hope,"  said  Sinfi. 

"Offence  in  calling  the  Gorgios  mad?  Not  the  smallest, 
save  that  you  have  distinctly  plagiarized  from  me  in  your 
classification  of  the  Gorgio  race." 

His  companion  called  out  again.  "Just  one  moment !  Do 
come  and  look  at  the  position  of  this  tree." 

"Li  a  second,  Wilderspin,  in  a  second,"  said  the 
other.  "An  old  friend  and  myself  are  in  the  midst  of  a 
discussion." 


174  Aylwin 

"A  discussion !"  said  the  person  addressed  as  Wilderspin. 
"And  with  whom,  pray  ?" 

"With  Lady  Sinfi  Lovell, — a  discussion  as  to  the  exact 
value  of  your  own  special  kind  of  madness  in  relation  to  the 
tomfooleries  of  the  Gorgio  mind  in  general." 

"Kekka !  kekka !"  said  Sinfi,  "you  shouldn't  have  said 
that." 

"And  I  was  on  the  point  of  proving  to  her  ladyship  that  in 
these  days,  when  Art  has  become  genteel,  and  even  New 
Grub  Street  'decorates'  her  walls — when  success  means  not 
so  much  painting  fine  pictures  as  building  fine  houses  to 
paint  in — the  greatest  compliment  you  can  pay  to  a  man 
of  genius  is  surely  to  call  him  either  a  beggar  or  a  madman." 

^I'he  peculiarity  of  this  "chaff"  was  that  it  was  uttered  in  a 
simple  and  serious  tone,  in  which  not  the  faintest  tinge  of 
ironical  intent  was  apparent.  The  other  artist  looked  across 
and  said  :  "Dear  me !  Sinfi  Lovell !  I  am  pleased  to  see  you, 
Sinfi.  I  will  ask  you  for  a  sitting  to-morrow.  A  study  of  your 
head  would  be  very  suggestive  among  the  Welsh  hills.  ' 

The  man  who  had  been  "chaffing"  Sinfi  then  rose  and 
walked  towards  his  Quaker-like  companion,  and  I  had  an 
opportunity  of  observing  him  fully.  I  saw  that  he  was  a 
spare  man,  wearing  a  brown  velvet  coat  and  a  dark  felt  hat. 
The  collar  of  the  coat  seemed  to  have  been  made  carefully 
larger  than  usual,  in  order  to  increase  the  apparent  width  of 
his  chest.  His  hair  was  brown  and  curly,  but  close  cut. 
His  features  were  regular,  perhaps  handsome.  His  com- 
plexion was  bright, — fair  almost, — rosy  in  hue,  and  his  eyes 
were  brown. 

He  shook  hands  with  Sinfi  as  he  passed  us,  and  gave  me 
a  glance  of  that  rapid  and  all-comprehending  kind  which 
seems  to  take  in,  at  once,  a  picture  in  its  every  detail. 

"What  do  you  think  of  him  ?"  said  Sinfi  to  me,  as  he 
passed  on  and  we  two  sat  down  on  the  grass  by  the  side  of 
the  stream. 

"I  am  puzzled,"  I  replied,  "to  know  whether  he  is  a  young 
man  who  looks  like  a  middle-aged  one,  or  a  middle-aged 
man  who  looks  like  a  young  one.  How's  his  hair  under  the 
hat?" 

"Thinnish  atop,"  said  Sinfi,  laconically. 

"And  I'm  puzzled,"  I  added,  still  looking  at  him  as  he 
walked  over  the  grass,  "as  to  whether  he's  a  little  man  who 
looks  middle-sized,  or  a  middle-sized  man  who  looks  little." 


The  Leader  of  the  Aylwinians        iy^ 

"He's  a  little  big  'un,"  said  Sinfi;  "about  the  height  o' 
Rhona  Bozzell's  Tarno  Rye." 

"Altogether  he  puzzles  me,  Sinfi!" 

"He  puzzled  me  same  way  at  fust." 

What  was  it  that  made  me  take  an  interest  so  strange, 
strong,  and  sudden  in  this  man?  Without  a  hint  of  hair 
upon  his  face,  while  juvenile  curls  clustered  thick  and 
short  beneath  his  wide-awake,  he  had  at  first  struck  me 
as  being  not  much  more  than  a  lad,  till,  as  he  gave  me 
that  rapid,  searching  glance  in  passing,  I  perceived  the 
little  crow's  feet  round  his  eyes,  and  he  then  struck  me 
immediately  as  being  probably  on  the  verge  of  thirty-five. 
His  figure  was  slim  and  thin,  his  waist  almost  girlish  in  its 
fall.  I  should  have  considered  him  small  had  not  the 
unusually  deep,  loud,  manly,  and  sonorous  voice  with  which 
he  had  accosted  Sinfi  conveyed  an  impression  of  size  and 
weight  such  as  even  big  men  do  not  often  produce.  This 
deep  voice,  coupled  with  that  gaunt  kind  of  cheek  which 
we  associate  with  the  most  demure  people,  produced  an 
effect  of  sedateness  such  as  I  should  have  expected  to 
find  (and  did  not  find)  in  the  other  man — the  man  of  the 
shaven  cheek  and  Quaker  costume;  but,  in  the  one  glance 
I  had  got  from  those  watchful,  sagacious,  twinkling  eyes, 
there  was  an  expression  quite  peculiar  to  them,  quite  in- 
scrutable, quite  indescribable. 


IL 

"Can  you  reckon  him  up,  brother?"  said  Sinfi,  taking  my 
meerschaum  from  my  lips  to  refill  it  for  me,  as  she  was  fond 
of  doing. 

"No." 

"Nor  I  nuther,"  said  Sinfi.  "Nor  I  can't  pen  his  dukker- 
in'  nuther,  though  often's  the  time  I've  tried  it." 

During  this  time  the  two  friends  seemed  to  have  finished 
their  colloquy  upon  "composition";  for  they  both  came  up 
to  us._  Sinfi  rose;  I  sat  still  on  the  grass,  smoking  my  pipe, 
listening  to  the  chatter  of  the  water  as  it  rushed  over  the 
rocks.  By  this  time  my  curiosity  in  the  younger  man  had 
died  away.    My  mind  was  occupied  with  the  dream-picture 


176  Aylwin 

of  a  little  blue-eyed  girl  struggling  with  a  wounded  heron. 
I  had  noticed,  however,  that  he  of  the  piercing  eyes  did  not 
look  at  me  again,  having  entirely  exhausted  at  a  glance 
such  interest  as  I  had  momentarily  afforded  him;  while 
his  companion  seemed  quite  unconscious  of  my  presence 
as  he  stood  there,  his  large,  full,  deep,  brown  eyes  gazing 
apparently  at  something  over  my  head,  a  long  way  oflf. 
Also  I  had  noticed  that  ''Visionary"  was  stamped  upon  this 
man's  every  feature — that  he  seemed  an  inspired  baby  of 
forty,  talking  there  to  his  companion  and  to  Sinfi,  the  sun 
falling  upon  his  long,  brown,  curly  hair,  mixed  with  gray, 
which  fell  from  beneath  his  hat,  and  floated  around  his 
collar  like  a  mane. 

When  my  reverie  had  passed,  I  found  the  artists  trying 
to  arrange  with  Sinfi  to  give  an  open-air  sitting  to  one  of 
them,  the  man  addressed  as  Wilderspin.  Sinfi  seemed 
willing  enough  to  come  to  terms;  but  I  saw  her  look  round 
at  me  as  if  saying  to  herself,  "What  am  I  to  do  with  you?" 

"I  should  like  for  my  brother  to  sit  too,"  I  heard  her  say. 

"Surely !"  said  Wilderspin.  "Your  brother  would  be  a 
great  gain  to  my  picture." 

Sinfi  then  came  to  me,  and  said  that  the  painter  wanted 
me  to  sit  to  him. 

"But,"  said  I  in  an  undertone,  "the  Gorgios  will  certainly 
find  out  that  I  am  no  Romany." 

"Not  they,"  said  Sinfi,  "the  Gorgios  is  sich  fools.  Why, 
bless  you,  a  Gorgio  ain't  got  eyes  and  ears  like  a  Romany. 
You  don't  suppose  as  a  Gorgio  can  hear  or  see  or  smell 
like  a  Romany  can?" 

"But  you  forget,  Sinfi,  that  I  am  a  Gorgio,  and  there  are 
not  many  Romanies  can  boast  of  better  senses  than  your 
brother  Hal." 

"Dordi !"  said  Sinfi,  "that's  jist  like  your  mock-modesty. 
Your  great-grandmother  wur  a  Romany,  and  it's  my  belief 
that  if  you  only  went  back  fur  enough,  you'd  find  you 
had  jist  as  good  Romany  blood  in  your  veins  as  I  have,  and 
my  daddy  is  a  duke,  you  know,  a  real,  reg'lar,  out-an'-out 
Romany  duke." 

"I'm  afraid  you  flatter  me.  sister,"  I  replied.  "However, 
let's  try  the  Gorgios";  and  I  got  up  and  walked  with  her 
close  to  the  two  sketchers. 

Wilderspin  was  on  the  point  of  engaging  me,  when  the 
other  man,  without  troubling  to  look  at  me  again,  said: 


The   Leader  of  the  Aylwinians         177 

"He's  no  more  a  Romany  than  I  am." 

"Ain't  a  Romany?"  said  Sinfi.  "Who  says  my  brother 
ain't  a  Romany?  Where  did  you  ever  see  a  Gorgio  with  a 
skin  Hke  that  ?"  she  said,  triumphantly  pulHng  up  my  sleeve 
and  exposing  one  of  my  wrists.  "That  aint  sunburn,  that's 
the  real  Romany  brown,  an'  we's  twinses,  only  I'm  the  big- 
gest, an'  Ave's  the  child'n  of  a  duke,  a  real,  reg'lar,  out-an'- 
out  Romany  duke." 

He  gave  a  glance  at  the  exposed  wrist. 

"As  to  the  Romany  brown,"  said  he,  "a  little  soap  would 
often  make  a  change  in  the  best  Romany  brown — ducal  or 
other." 

"Why,  look  at  his  neck,"  said  Sinfi,  turning  down  my 
neckerchief;  "is  that  sunburn,  or  is  it  Romany  brown,  I 
should  like  to  know?" 

"I  assure  you,"  said  the  speaker,  still  addressing  her  in  the 
same  grave,  measured  voice,  "that  the  Romanies  have  no 
idea  what  a  little  soap  can  do  with  the  Romany  brown." 

"Do  you  mean  to  say,"  cried  Sinfi,  now  entirely  losing 
her  temper  (for  on  the  subject  of  Romany  cleanliness  she, 
the  most  cleanly  of  women,  was  keenly  sensitive) — "do  you 
mean  to  say  as  the  Romany  chals  an'  the  Romany  chies 
don't  wash  theirselves?  I  know  what  you  fine  Gorgics 
do  say, — you're  alius  a-tellin'  lies  about  us  Romanies. 
Brother,"  she  cried,  turning  now  to  me  in  a  great  fury,  "I'm 
a  duke's  c'havi,  and  mustn't  fight  no  mumply  Gorgios;  why 
don't  you  take  an'  make  his  bed  for  him?" 

And  certainly  the  man's  supercilious  impertinence  was 
beginning  to  irritate  me. 

"I  should  advise  you  to  withdraw  that  about  the  soap,"  I 
said  quietly,  looking  at  him, 

"Oh!  and  if  I  don't?" 

"Why,  then  I  suppose  I  must  do  as  my  sister  bids,"  said 
I.  "I  must  make  your  bed,"  pointing  to  the  grass  beneath 
his  feet.  "But  I  think  it  only  fair  to  tell  you  that  I  am  some- 
what of  a  fighting  man,  which  you  probably  are  not." 

"You  mean?  .  . ."  said  he  (turning  round  menacingly  but 
with  no  more  notion  of  how  to  use  his  fists  than  a  lobster). 

"I  mean  that  we  should  not  be  fighting  on  equal  terms," 
I  said. 

"In  other  words."  said  he,  "you  mean?  .  .  ."  and  he 
came  nearer. 

"In  other  words,  I  mean  that,  judging  from  the  way  in 


178  Aylwin 

which  you  are  advancing  towards  me  now,  the  result  of 
such  an  encounter  might  not  tend  to  the  honour  and  glory 
of  the  British  artist  in  Wales." 

"But,"  said  he,  "you  are  no  Gypsy.    Who  are  you?" 

"My  name  is  Henry  Aylwin,"  said  I;  "and  I  must  ask 
you  to  withdraw  your  words  about  the  virtues  of  soap,  as 
my  sister  objects  to  them." 

"What?"  cried  he,  losing  for  the  first  time  his  matchless 
scmg-froid.  "Henry  Aylwin?"  Then  he  looked  at  me  in 
silent  amazement,  while  an  expression  of  the  deepest 
humorous  enjoyment  overspread  his  features,  making  them 
positively  shine  as  though  oiled.  Finally,  he  burst  into  a 
loud  laugh,  that  was  all  the  more  irritating  from  the  mani- 
fest effort  he  made  to  restrain  it. 

"Did  I  hear  his  Majesty  of  Gypsy dom  aright?"  he  said,  as 
soon  as  his  hilarity  allowed  him  to  speak.  "Is  the  humble 
bed  of  a  mere  painter  to  be  made  for  him  by  the  representa- 
tive of  the  proud  Aylwins,  the  genteel  Aylwins,  the  heir- 
presumptive  Aylwins — the  most  respectable  branch  of  a 
most  respectable  family,  which,  alas!  has  its  ungenteel,  its 
bohemian,  its  vulgar  off-shoots?  Did  I  hear  his  Majesty  of 
Gypsydom  aright?" 

He  leant  against  a  tree,  and  gave  utterance  to  peal  after 
peal  of  laughter. 

I  advanced  with  rapidly  rising  anger,  but  his  hilarity  had 
so  overmastered  him  that  he  did  not  heed  it. 

"Wilderspin,"  cried  he,  "come  here!  Pray  come  here. 
Have  I  not  often  told  you  the  reason  why  I  threw  up  my 
engagement  with  my  theatrical  manager,  and  missed  my 
high  vocation  in  ungenteel  comedy?  Have  I  not  often 
told  you  that  it  sprang  from  no  disrespect  to  my  friends, 
the  comic  actors,  but  from  the  feeling  that  no  comedian 
can  hope  to  be  comic  enough  to  compete  with  the  real 
thing — the  true  harlequinade  of  everyday  Hfe,  roaring  and 
screaming  around  me  wherever  I  go?" 

Then,  without  waiting  for  his  companion's  reply,  he 
turned  to  me,  and  giving  an  added  volume  to  his  sonorous 
voice,  said: 

"And  you,  Sir  King,  do  you  know  whose  bed  your 
Majesty  was  going  to  make  at  the  bidding  of — ^well,  of  a 
duke's  chavi?" 

I  advanced  with  still  growing  anger. 

"Stay,  King  Bamfylde,  stay,"  said  he ;  "shall  the  beds  of 


The  Leader  of  the  Aylwinians        179 

the  mere  ungenteel  Aylwins,  'the  outside  Aylwins,'  be  made 
by  the  high  Gypsy-gentiHty  of  Raxton?" 

A  hght  began  to  break  in  upon  me.  "Surely,"  I  said, 
"surely  you  are  not  Cyril  Aylwin,  the ?" 

"Pray  finish  your  sentence,  sir,  and  say  the  low  bohemian 
painter,  the  representative  of  the  great  ungenteel — the  suc- 
cessor to  the  Aylwin  peerage." 

The  other  painter,  looking  in  blank  amazement  at  my 
newly-found  kinsman's  extraordinary  merriment,  ex- 
claimed, "Bless  me!  Then  you  really  can  laugh  aloud,  Mr. 
Cyril.  What  has  happened?  What  can  have  happened 
to  make  my  dear  friend  laugh  aloud?" 

"Well  he  may  ask,"  said  Cyril,  turning  to  me.  "He  knows 
that  ever  since  I  was  a  boy  in  jackets  I  have  despised  the 
man  who,  in  a  world  where  all  is  so  comic,  could  select  any 
particular  point  of  the  farce  for  his  empty  guflfaw.  But  I 
am  conquered  at  last.  Let  me  introduce  you.  Wilderspin, 
to  my  kinsman,  Henry  Aylwin  of  Raxton  Hall,  alias  Lord 
Henry  Lovell  of  Little  Egypt — one  of  Duke  Panuel's  in- 
teresting twinses." 

But  Wilderspin's  astonishment,  apparently,  was  not  at 
the  rencontre:  it  was  at  the  spectacle  of  his  companion's 
hilarity.  "Wonderful!"  he  murmured,  with  his  eyes  still 
fastened  upon  Cyril.  "My  dear  friend  can  laugh  aloud. 
Most  wonderful!    What  can  have  happened?" 

This  is  what  had  happened.  By  one  of  those  strange 
coincidences  which  make  the  drama  of  real  life  far  more 
wonderful  than  the  drama  of  any  stage,  I,  in  my  character 
of  wandering  Gypsy,  had  been  tbrown  across  the  path  of 
the  bete  noire  of  my  mother  and  aunt,  Cyril  Aylwin.  a  painter 
of  bohemian  proclivities,  who  (under  the  name  of  "Cyril") 
had  obtained  some  consideralble  reputation.  This  kinsman 
of  mine  had  been  held  up  to  me  as  a  warning  from  mv 
very  childhood,  though  wherein  lav  his  delinquencies  T 
never  did  clearly  understand,  save  that  he  had  once  been 
an  actor — before  acting  had  become  genteel.  Often  as  I 
had  heard  of  this  eccentric  painter  as  the  representative  of 
the  branch  of  the  family  which  preceded  mine  in  the  succes- 
sion to  the  coveted  earldom.  I  had  never  seen  him  before. 

He  stood  and  looked  at  me  in  a  state  of  intense  amuse- 
ment, but  did  not  speak. 

"So  you  are  Cyril  Aylwin?"  T  said.  "Still  you  must 
withdraw  what  you  said  to  my  sister  about  the  soap." 


i8o  Aylwin 

"Delicious!"  said  he,  grasping  my  hand.  "I  had  no  idea 
that  high  gentihty  numbered  chivalry  among  its  virtues. 
Lady  Sinfi,"  he  continued,  turning  to  her,  "they  say  this 
brother  of  yours  is  a  character,  and,  by  Jove!  he  is.  And 
as  to  you,  dear  la'dy,  I  am  proud  of  the  family  connection. 
The  man  who  has  two  Romany  Rye  kinsmen  may  be  ex- 
cused for  showing  a  little  pride.  I  withdraw  every  word 
about  the  virtues  of  soap,  and  am  convinced  that  it  can  do 
nothing  with  the  true  Romany-Aylwin  brown." 

On  that  we  shook  hands  all  round.  "But,  Sinfi,"  said  I, 
"why  did  you  not  tell  me  that  this  was  my  kinsman?" 

"  'Cause  I  didn't  know,"  said  she.  "I  han't  never  seed 
him  since  I've  know'd  you.  I  always  heerd  his  friends  call 
him  Cyril,  and  so  I  used  to  call  him  Mr.  Cyril." 

"But,  Lady  Sinfi,  my  Helen  of  Little  Egypt,"  said  Cyril, 
"suppose  that  in  my  encounter  with  my  patrician  cousin — 
an  encounter  which  would  have  been  entirely  got  up  in 
honour  of  you — suppose  it  had  happened  that  I  had  made 
your  brother's  bed  for  him?" 

"You  make  his  bed!"  exclaimed  Sinfi,  laughing.  "Dordi! 
how  you  would  ha'  went  down  afore  the  Swimmin'  Rei!"* 

"But  suppose  that,  on  the  contrary,  he  had  gone  down 
before  me,"  said  Cyril;  "suppose  I  had  been  the  death  of 
your  Swimming  Rei,  I  should  have  been  tried  for  the  wilful 
murder  of  a  prince  of  Little  Egypt,  the  son  of  a  Romany 
duke.  Why,  Helen  of  Troy  was  not  half  so  mischievous  a 
beauty  as  a^ou." 

"You  was  safe  enough,  no  fear,"  said  Sinfi.  "It  'ud  take 
six  o'  you  to  settle  the  Swimmin'  Rei." 

I  found  that  Cyril  and  his  strange  companion  were  stay- 
ing at  the  "Royal  Oak,"  at  Bettws  y  Coed.  They  asked  me 
to  join  them,  but  when  I  told  them  I  "could  not  leave  my 
people,  who  were  encamped  about  two  miles  ofT,"  Cyril 
again  looked  at  me  with  an  expression  of  deepest  enjoy- 
ment, and  exclaimed  "Delightful  creature." 

Turning  to  Sinfi,  he  said:  "Then  we'll  go  with  you  and 
call  upon  the  noble  father  of  the  twins,  mv  old  friend  King 
Panuel." 

"He  ain't  a  king,"  said  Sinfi  modestly,  "he's  only  a  duke." 
*  By  the  Welsh  Gypsies,  but  few  of  whom  can  swim,  I  was  called 
"the  Swimmin'  Rei,"  a  name  which  would  have  been  far  more  ap- 
propriately Riven  to  Percy  Aylwin  (Rhona  Boswell's  lover),  one  of 
the  strongest  swimmers  in  England;  but  he  was  simply  called  the 
Tarno  Rye  (the  young  gentleman.) 


The  Leader  of  the  Aylwinians        i8i 

"You'll  give  us  some  tea,  Lady  Sinfi?"  said  Cyril.  "No 
tea  equal  to  Gypsy  tea." 

"Romany  tea,  Mr.  Cyril,"  replied  Sinfi,  with  perfect 
dignity  and  grace.  "My  daddy,  the  duke,  will  be  pleased 
to  welcome  you." 

We  all  strolled  towards  the  tents.  I  offered  to  carry  an 
umbrella  and  a  camp-stool.  Cyril  walked  briskly  away 
with  Sinfi,  leaving  me  to  get  on  with  Wilderspin  as  best  I 
could.  Before  the  other  two  were  out  of  earshot,  however, 
I  heard  Cyril  say : 

"You  shouldn't  have  taken  so  seriously  my  chaff  about 
the  soap,  Sinfi.  You  ought  to  know  me  better  by  this  time 
than  to  think  that  I  would  really  insult  you." 

"How  you  would  ha'  went  down  afore  the  Swimmin' 
Rei!"  replied  Sinfi  regretfully. 


III. 

Between  my  new  companion,  Wilderspin,  and  myself  there 
was  an  awkward  silence  for  some  time.  He  was  evidently  in 
a  brown  study.  I  had  ample  opportunity  for  examining  his 
face.  Deeply  impressed  upon  his  forehead  there  was,  as 
I  now  perceived,  an  ancient  scar  of  a  peculiar  shape.  At 
last,  a  lovely  bit  of  scenery  hroke  the  spell,  and  conversation 
began  to  flow  freely. 

We  had  nearly  got  within  sight  of  the  encampment  when 
he  said : 

"I  am  in  some  perplexity,  sir,  about  the  various  branches 
of  your  family.  Aylwin,  I  need  not  tell  you,  was  the  name 
of  the  greatest  man  of  this  age,  and  I  am  anxious  to 
know  what  is  exactly  your  connection  with  him." 

"You  surprise  me,"  I  said.  "Out  of  our  own  family,  in 
its  various  branches,  there  is,  I  have  been  told,  no  very 
large  number  of  Aylwins,  and  I  had  no  idea  that  one  of 
them  had  become  famous." 

"I  did  not  say  famous,  sir,  but  great;  two  very  different 
words.  Yet,  in  a  certain  deep  sense,  it  may  be  said  of 
Philip  Aylwin's  name  that  since  his  lamented  death  it  has 
even  become  famous.  The  Aylwinians  (of  which  body  I 
am,  as  you  are  no  doubt  aware,  founder  and  president)  are, 
I  may  say,  becoming " 


1 82  Aylwin 

"Philip  Aylwin!"  I  said.  "Why,  that  was  my  father.  He 
famous!" 

The  recollection  of  the  essay  upon  "Hamalet  and  Ham- 
let," the  thought  of  the  brass-rubbing-s,  the  knee-caps  and 
mittens,  came  before  me  in  an  irresistibly  humorous  light, 
and  I  could  not  repress  a  smile.  Then  arose  upon  me  the  re- 
membrance of  the  misery  that  had  fallen  upon  Winnie  and 
myself  from  his  monomania  and  what  seemed  to  me  his 
superstitious  folly,  and  I  could  not  withhold  an  angry  scowl. 
Then  came  the  picture  of  the  poor  scarred  breast,  the  love- 
token  and  the  martyrdom  that  came  to  him  who  had  too 
deeply  loved,  and  smile  and  frown  both  passed  from  my  face 
as  I  murmured, — "Poor  father!  he  famous!" 

"Philip  Aylwin's  son!"  said  Wilderspin,  staring  at  me. 
Then,  raising  his  hat  as  reverentially  to  me  as  if  I  had  been 
the  son  of  Shakespeare  himself,  he  said,  "Mr.  Aylwin,  since 
Mary  Wilderspin  went  home  to  heaven,  the  one  great  event 
of  my  life  has  been  the  reading  of  The  Veiled  Queen, 
your  father's  book  of  inspired  wisdom  upon  the  modern 
Renascence  of  Wonder  in  the  mind  of  Man.  To  apply  his 
principles  to  Art,  sir, — to  give  artistic  rendering  to  the  pro- 
found idea  hinted  at  in  the  marvellous  vignette  on  the 
title-page  of  his  third  edition, — has  been,  for  some  time  past, 
the  proud  task  of  my  Hfe.  And  you  are  the  great  man's  son! 
Astonishing !  Although  his  great  learning  overwhelms  my 
mind  and  appals  my  soul  (whom,  indeed,  should  it  not  over- 
whelm and  appal?)  there  is  not  a  pamphlet  of  his  that  I  do 
not  know  intimately,  almost  by  heart." 

"Including  the  paper  on  'Hamlet  and  Hamalet,  and  the 
wide  region  of  Nowhere'?" 

"Including  that  and  everything." 

"Did  you  know  him,  Mr.  Wilderspin?" 

"Not  in  the  flesh;  in  the  spirit,  who  knows  him  so  well? 
Your  mother  I  have  had  the  pleasure  of  meeting  at  the 
house  of  Lord  Sleaford,  and  indeed  I  have  had  the  dis- 
tinguished honour  of  painting  her  portrait,  but  the  great 
author  of  The  Veiled  Queen, — ^the  inspired  designer  of 
the  vignette  symbolical  of  the  Renascence  of  Wonder  in 
Art — I  never  had  the  rapture  of  seeing.  This  very  day,  the 
anniversary  of  his  birth."  he  continued,  "is  a  great  day  in 
the  Aylwinian  calendar." 

"My  father's  birthday?    Why,  so  it  is!" 

"Mr.  Aylwin,  is  it  possible  that  the  anniversary  of  a  day 


The  Leader  of  the  Aylwinians         183 

so  momentous  for  the  world  is  forgotten — forgotten  by  the 
very  issue  of  the  great  man's  loins?" 

"The  fact  is,"  said  I,  in  some  confusion,  "I  have  been 
living  with  the  Gypsies,  and,  you  see,  Mr.  Wilderspin,  the 
passage  of  time " 

"The  son  of  Philip  Aylwin  a  Gypsy!"  murmured  Wilder- 
spin  meditatively,  and  unconscious  evidently  that  he  was 
speaking  aloud — "a  Gypsy!  Still  it  would  surely  be  a  mis- 
take to  suppose,"  he  continued,  perfectly  oblivious  now 
of  my  presence,  "that  the  vagaries  of  the  son  can  really 
bring  shame  upon  the  head  of  the  father." 

"But,  by  God!"  I  cried,  "it  is  no  mistake  that  the  vagaries 
of  the  father  can  bring  shame  and  sorrow  and  misery  upon 
the  child.  I  could  name  a  couple  of  fathers — sleeping  very 
close  to  each  other  now — 'whose  vagaries " 

My  sudden  anger  was  carrying  me  away;  but  I  stopped, 
recollecting  myself. 

"Doubtless,"  said  Wilderspin,  "there  are  fathers  and 
fathers.  The  son  of  Philip  Aylwin  has  assuredly  a  right  to 
be  critical  in  regard  to  all  other  fathers  than  his  own." 

I  looked  in  his  face;  the  expression  of  solemn  earnestness 
was  quite  unmistakable. 

"It  is  not  you,"  I  said  "it  is  Heaven,  or  else  it  is  the  blind 
jester  Circumstance,  that  is  playing  this  joke  upon  me!" 

"To  your  honoured  father,"  he  continued,  taking  not  the 
smallest  notice  of  my  interjection,"!  owe  everything.  From 
his  grave  he  supports  my  soul;  from  his  grave  he  gives  me 
ideas;  from  his  grave  he  makes  my  fame.  How  should  I 
fail  to  honour  his  son,  even  though  he " 

Of  course  he  w^as  going  to  add, — "even  though  he  be  a 
vagabond  associating  with  vagabonds," — but  he  left  the 
sentence  unfinished. 

"I  confess,  Mr.  Wilderspin,"  said  I,  "that  you  speak  in 
such  enigmas  that  it  would  be  folly  for  me  to  attempt  to 
answer  you." 

"I  wish,"  said  Wilderspin,  "that  all  enigmas  were  as 
soluble  as  this.  Let  me  ask  you  a  question,  sir.  When  you 
stood  before  my  picture,  'Faith  and  Love,'  in  Bond  Street, 
did  you  not  perceive  that  both  it  and  the  predella  were  in- 
spired entirely  by  your  father's  great  work,  The  Veiled 
Queen,  or  rather  that  they  are  mere  pictorial  renderings 
and  illustrations  of  that  grand  efifort  of  man's  soul  in  its 
loftiest  development?" 


1 84  Aylwin 

I  had  never  heard  of  the  picture  in  question.  As  for  the 
book,  my  father,  perceiving  my  great  disUke  of  mysticism, 
had  always  shrunk  from  showing  me  any  effusion  of  his 
that  was  not  of  a  simply  antiquarian  kind.  In  Switzerland, 
however,  after  his  death,  while  waiting  for  the  embalmer  to 
finish  his  work,  I  had  become,  during  a  few  days'  reading, 
acquainted  with  The  Veiled  Queen.  It  was  a  new  edi- 
tion containing  an  "added  chapter,"  full  of  subtle  spiritual- 
istic symbols.  Amid  what  had  seemed  to  me  mere  mystical 
jargon  about  the  veil  of  Isis  being  upUfted,  not  by  Man's 
reason,  not  by  such  researches  as  those  of  Darwin,  Huxley, 
Spencer,  and  the  continental  evolutionists,  but  by  Faith 
and  Love,  I  had  come  across  passages  of  burning  eloquence. 

"I  am  sorry  to  say,"  I  replied,  "that  my  Gypsy  wander- 
ings are  again  answerable  for  my  shortcomings.  I  have 
not  yet  seen  your  picture.    When  I  do  see  it  I " 

"Not  seen  'Faith  and  Love'  and  the  equally  wonderful 
predella  at  the  foot  of  it?"  he  exclaimed  incredulously.  "Ah, 
but  you  have  been  living  among  the  Gypsies.  It  is  the 
greatest  picture  of  the  modern  world;  for,  Mr.  Aylwin,  it 
renders  in  Art  the  inevitable  attitude  of  its  own  time  and 
country  towards  the  unseen  world,  and  renders  it  as  com- 
pletely as  did  the  masterpiece  of  Polygnotus  in  the  Lesche 
of  the  Cnidians  at  Delphi — as  completely  as  did  the  won- 
derful frescoes  of  Andrea  Orcagna  on  the  walls  of  the 
Campo  Santo  at  Pisa." 

"And  you  attribute  your  success  to  the  inspiration  you 
derived  from  my  father's  book?" 

"To  that  and  to  the  spirit  of  Mary  Wilderspin  in  heaven." 

"Then  you  are  a  Spiritualist?" 

"I  am  an  Aylwinian,  the  opposite  (need  I  say?)  of  a 
Darwinian." 

"Of  the  school  of  Blake,  perhaps?"  I  asked. 

"Of  the  school  of  Blake?  No.  He  was  on  the  right 
road;  but  he  was  a  writer  of  verses!  Art  is  a  jealous  mis- 
tress, Mr.  Aylwin:  the  painter  who  rhymes  is  lost.  Even 
the  master  himself  is  so  much  the  weaker  by  every  verse 
he  has  written.  I  never  could  make  a  rhyme  in  my  life,  and 
have  faithfully  shunned  printer's  ink,  the  black  blight  of 
the  painter.  I  am  my  own  school;  the  school  of  the  spirit 
world." 

"I  am  very  curious,"  I  said,  "to  know  in  what  way  my 
father  and  the  spirits  can  have  inspired  a  great  painter.    Of 


The  Leader  of  the  Aylwinians         185 

the  vignette  I  may  claim  to  know  something.  Of  the  spirits 
as  artists  I  have  of  course  no  knowledge,  but  as  regards  my 
father,  he,  I  am  certain,  could  hardly  have  told  a  Raphael 
from  a  chromo-lithograph  copy.  He  was,  in  spite  of  that 
same  vignette,  most  ignorant  of  art.  Raxton  Hall  possesses 
nothing  but  family  portraits." 


IV. 

By  this  time  we  had  reached  the  encampment,  which  was 
close  by  a  waterfall  among  ferns  and  wild-flowers.  Little 
Jerry  Lovell,  a  child  of  about  four  years  of  age,  came 
running  to  meet  me  with  a  dead  water-wagtail  in  his  hand 
which  he  had  knocked  down. 

"Me  kill  de  Romany  Chiriklo,"  said  he,  and  then  pro- 
ceeded to  tell  me  very  gravely  that,  having  killed  the  "Gypsy 
magpie,"  he  was  bound  to  have  a  great  lady  for  his  sweet- 
heart. 

"Jerry,"  said  I  bitterly,  "you  begin  with  love  and 
superstition  early ;  you  are  an  incipient  'Aylwinian' :  take 
care." 

When  I  explained  to  Wilderspin  that  this  was  one  of  the 
Romany  beliefs,  he  said  that  he  did  not  at  present  see  the 
connection  between  a  dead  water-wagtail  and  a  live  lady, 
but  that  such  a  connection  might  doubtless  exist.  Panuel 
Lovell  now  came  forward  to  greet  and  welcome  Wilderspin. 
Sinfi  and  Cyril  had  evidently  walked  at  a  brisk  rate,  for 
already  tea  was  spread  out  on  a  cloth.  The  fire  was  blaz- 
ing beneath  a  kettle  slung  from  the  "kettle-prop."  The 
party  were  waiting  for  us.  Sinfi,  however,  never  idle,  was 
filling  up  the  time  by  giving  lessons  in  riding  to  Euri  and 
Sylvester  Lovell,  two  dusky  urchins  in  their  early  teens, 
while  her  favourite  bantam-cock  Pharaoli,  standing  on  a 
donkey's  back,  his  wattles  gleaming  like  coral  in  the  sun, 
was  crowing  lustily.  Cyril,  who  lay  stretched  among  the 
ferns,  his  chin  resting  in  his  hands  and  a  cigarette  in  his 
mouth,  was  looking  on  with  the  deepest  interest.  As  I 
passed  behind  him  to  introduce  Wilderspin  to  Videy  Lovell 
(who  was  making  tea),  I  heard  Cyril  say: 

"Lady  Sinfi,  you  must  and  shall  teach  me  how  to  make 


1 86  Aylwin 

an  adversary's  bed — the  only  really  essential  part  of  a  liberal 
education." 

"Brother,"  said  Sinfi,  turning  to  me,  "your  thoughts  are 
a-flyin'  off  agin;  keep  your  spirits  up  afore  all  these." 

The  leafy  dingle  was  recalling  Graylingham  Wilderness 
and  "Fairy  Dell,"  where  little  Winifred  used  to  play  Titania 
to  my  childish  Oberon,  and  dance  the  Gypsy  "shawl-dance" 
Sinfi  had  taught  her! 

So  much  was  I  occupied  with  these  reminiscences  that  I 
had  not  observed  that  during  our  absence  our  camp  had 
been  honoured  by  visitors.  These  were  Jericho  Boswell, 
christened,  I  believe,  Jasper,  his  daughter  Rhona,  and 
James  Heme,  called  on  account  of  his  accomplishments  as 
a  penman  the  Scollard.  Although  Jasper  Boswell  and 
Panuel  Lovell  vvcre  rival  Griengoes,  there  was  no  jealousy 
between  them — indeed,  they  were  excellent  friends. 

There  were  many  points  of  similarity  between  their  char- 
acters. Each  had  risen  from  comparative  poverty  to  what 
might  be  called  wealth,  and  risen  in  the  same  way,  that 
is  to  say,  by  straightforward  dealing  with  the  Gorgios, 
although  as  regarded  Jericho,  Rhona  was  generally  credited 
with  having  acted  as  a  great  auxiliary  in  amassing  his 
wealth.  All  over  the  country  the  farmers  and  horse-dealers 
knew  that  neither  Jasper  nor  Panuel  ever  bishoped  a  gry, 
or  indulged  in  any  other  horse-dealing  tricks.  Their  very 
simplicity  of  character  had  done  what  all  the  crafty  tricks 
of  certain  compeers  of  theirs  had  failed  to  do.  They  were 
also  very  much  alike  in  their  good-natured  and  humorous 
way  of  taking  all  the  ups  and  downs  of  life. 

A  very  different  kind  of  Romany  was  the  Scollard,  so 
different,  indeed,  that  it  was  hard  to  think  that  he  was  of  the 
same  race:  Romany  guile  incarnate  was  the  Scollard.  He 
suggested  even  in  his  personal  appearance  the  typical  Gypsy 
of  the  novel  and  the  stage,  rather  than  the  true  Gypsy  as  he 
lives  and  moves.  The  Scollard  was  well  known  to  be  half- 
crazed  with  a  passion  for  Rhona  Boswell,  who  was  the 
fiancee  of  that  cousin  of  mine,  Percy  Aylwin,  before  men- 
tioned. Percy  was  considered  to  be  a  hopelessly  erratic 
character.  Much  against  the  wish  of  his  parents,  he  had 
been  brought  up  as  a  sailor;  but  on  seeing  Rhona  Boswell 
he  promptly  fell  in  love  with  her,  and  quitted  the  sea  in 
order  to  be  near  her.  And  no  man  who  ever  heard  Rhona's 
laugh  professed  to  wonder  at  Percy's  infatuation.     As  a 


The  Leader  of  the  Aylwinians        187 

Griengro  her  father,  Jericho  Boswell,  who  had  no  son,  was 
said  to  have  owed  his  prosperity  to  Rhona's  instinctive 
knowledge  of  horseflesh. 

While  our  guests,  Romany  and  Gorgio,  were  doing  jus- 
tice to  the  trout,  Welsh  brown  bread  and  butter  and  jam 
which  Vidcy  had  spread  before  them,  Sinfi  went  to  the  back 
of  the  camp  to  look  at  the  ponies,  and  I  got  into  conversa- 
tion with  Rhona  Boswell,  whom  I  remembered  so  well  as 
a  child.  At  first  she  was  shy  and  embarrassed,  doubtful, 
as  I  perceived,  whether  or  not  she  ought  to  talk  about 
Winnie.  She  waited  to  see  whether  I  introduced  the  sub- 
ject, and  finding  that  I  did  not,  she  began  to  talk  about 
Sinfi  and  plied  me  with  questions  as  to  what  we  two  had 
been  doing  and  where  we  had  been  during  our  wanderings 
through  Wales. 

When  tea  was  over  and  Cyril  was  in  lively  talk  with 
Sinfi,  Wilderspin  grew  restless,  and  I  perceived  that  he 
wanted  to  resume  his  conversation  with  me  about  his 
picture.  I  said  to  him:  "This  idea  of  my  father's  which 
has  inspired  you,  and  resulted  in  such  great  work,  what  is 
its  nature?" 

"I  am  a  painter,  Mr.  Aylwin,  and  nothing  more,"  he  re- 
plied. "I  could  only  express  Philip  Aylwin's  ideas  by  de- 
scribing my  picture  and  the  predella  beneath  it.  Will  you 
permit  me  to  do  so?" 

"Alay  I  ask  you,"  I  said,  "as  a  favour  to  do  so?" 

Immediately  his  face  became  very  bright,  and  into  his 
eyes  returned  the  far-ofif  look  already  described. 

"I  will  first  take  the  predella,  which  represents  Isis  be- 
hind the  Veil,"  said  he.  "Imagine  yourself  thousands  of 
years  away  from  this  time.  Imagine  yourself  thousands 
of  miles  away,  among  real  Egyptians." 

"Real  'Gyptiansl"  cried  Sinfi.  "Who  says  the  Romanies 
ain't  real  'Gyptians?  Anybody  as  says  my  daddy  ain't  a 
real  'Gyptian  duke'll  ha'  to  set  to  with  Sinfi  Lovell." 

"Nonsense,"  said  Cyril,  smiling,  and  playing  idly  with  a 
coral  amulet  dangling  from  Sinfi's  neck;  "he's  talking  about 
the  ancient  Egyptians :  Egyptian  mummies,  you  silly  Lady 
Sinfi.    You're  not  a  mummy,  are  you?" 

"Well,  no,  I  ain't  a  mummy  as  fur  as  I  knows  on,"  said 
Sinfi,  only  half-appeased;  "])ut  my  daddy's  a  'Gyptian  duke 
for  all  that, — ain't  you,  dad?" 

"So  it  seems,  Sin,"  said  Panuel,  "but  I  ommust  begin  to 


1 88  Aylwin 

wish  I  wasn't;  it  makes  you  feel  so  blazin'  shy  bein'  a  duke 
all  of  a  suddent." 

"Dabla !"  said  the  guest,  Jericho  Boswell.  "What,  Pan, 
has  she  made  a  dook  on  ye?" 

The  Scollard  began  to  grin. 

"Pull  that  ugly  mug  o'  yourn  straight,  Jim  Heme,"  said 
Sinfi,  "else  I'll  come  and  pull  it  straight  for  you." 

Wilderspin  took  no  notice  of  the  interruption,  but  ad- 
dressed me  as  though  no  one  else  were  within  earshot. 

"Imagine  yourself  standing  in  an  Egyptian  city,  where 
innumerable  lamps  of  every  hue  are  shining.  It  is  one  of 
the  great  lamp-fetes  of  Sias,  which  all  Egypt  has  come  to 
see.  There,  in  honour  of  the  feast,  sits  a  tall  woman,  cov- 
ered by  a  veil.  But  the  painting  is  so  wonderful,  Mr. 
Aylwin,  that,  though  you  see  a  woman's  face  expressed 
behind  the  veil — though  you  see  the  warm  flesh-tints  and 
the  light  of  the  eyes  through  the  aerial  film — you  cannot 
judge  of  the  character  of  the  face — you  cannot  see  whether 
it  is  that  of  woman  in  her  noblest,  or  woman  in  her  basest, 
type.  The  eyes  sparkle,  but  you  cannot  say  whether  they 
sparkle  with  malignity  or  benevolence — ^whether  they  are 
fired  with  what  Philip  Aylwin  calls  'the  love-liglit  of  the 
seventh  heaven,'  or  are  threatening  with  'the  hungry  flames 
of  the  seventh  hell!'  There  she  sits  in  front  of  a  portico, 
while,  asleep,  with  folded  wings,  is  crouched  on  one  side  of 
her  the  figure  of  Love,  with  rosy  feathers,  and  on  the  other 
the  figure  of  Faith,  with  plumage  of  a  deep  azure.  Over 
her  head,  on  the  portico,  are  written  the  words: — T  am 
all  that  hath  been,  is,  and  shall  be,  and  no  mortal  hath 
uncovered  my  veil.'  The  tinted  lights  falling  on  the  group 
are  shed,  you  see,  from  the  rainbow-coloured  lamps  of  Sais, 
which  are  countless.  But  in  spite  of  all  these  lamps,  Mr. 
Aylwin,  no  mortal  can  see  the  face  behind  that  veil.  And 
why?  Those  who  alone  could  uplift  it,  the  figures  with 
folded  wings — Faith  and  Love — are  fast  asleep  at  the  great 
Queen's  feet.  When  Faith  and  Love  are  sleeping  there, 
what  are  the  many-coloured  lamps  of  science? — of  what 
use  are  they  to  the  famished  soul  of  man?" 

"A  striking  idea!"  I  exclaimed. 

"Your  father's,"  replied  Wilderspin,  in  a  tone  of  such 
reverence  that  one  might  have  imagined  my  father's  spectre 
stood  before  him.  "It  sym])olises  that  base  Darwinian  cos- 
mogony which  Carlyle  spits  at,  and  the  great  and  good 


The  Leader  of  the  Aylwinians         189 

John  Ruskin  scorns.  But  this  design  is  only  the  predella 
beneath  the  picture  'Faith  and  Love.'  Now  look  at  the 
picture  itself,  Mr.  Aylwin,"  he  continued,  as  though  it  were 
upon  an  easel  before  me.  "You  are  at  Sais  no  longer:  you 
are  now,  as  the  architecture  around  you  shows,  in  a  Greek 
city  by  the  sea.  In  the  light  of  innumerable  lamps,  torches, 
and  wax  tapers,  a  procession  is  moving  through  the  streets. 
You  see  Isis,  as  Pelagia,  advancing  between  two  ranks,  one 
of  joyous  maidens  in  snow-white  garments,  adorned  with 
wreaths,  and  scattering  from  their  bosoms  all  kinds  of 
dewy  flowers;  the  other  of  youths,  playing  upon  pipes  and 
flutes,  mixed  with  men  with  shaven  shining  crowns,  play- 
ing upon  sistra  of  brass,  silver,  and  gold.  Isis  wears  a 
Dorian  tunic,  fastened  on  her  breast  by  a  tasselled  knot, 
— an  azure-coloured  tunic  bordered  with  silver  stars, — and 
an  upper  garment  of  the  colour  of  the  moon  at  moonrise. 
Her  head  is  crowned  with  a  chaplet  of  sea-flowers,  and 
round  her  throat  is  a  necklace  of  seaweeds,  wet  still  with 
sea-water,  and  shimmering  with  all  the  shifting  hues  of  the 
sea.  On  either  side  of  her  stand  the  awakened  angels,  up- 
lifting from  her  face  a  veil  whose  folds  flow  soft  as  water 
over  her  shoulders  and  over  the  wings  of  Faith  and  Love. 
A  symbol  of  the  true  cosmogony  which  Philip  Aylwin  gave 
to  the  world!" 

"Why,  that's  ezackly  like  the  wreath  o'  seaweeds  as  poor 
Winnie  Wynne  used  to  make,"  said  Rhona  Boswell. 

"The  photograph  of  Raxton  Fair!"  I  cried.  "Frank  and 
Winnie,  and  little  Bob  Milford,  and  the  seaweeds!"  The 
terrible  past  came  upon  my  soul  like  an  avalanche,  and  I 
leapt  up  and  walked  frantically  towards  my  own  waggon. 
The  picture,  which  was  nothing  but  an  idealisation  of  the 
vignette  upon  the  title-page  of  my  father's  book — the 
vignette  taken  from  the  photograph  of  Winnie,  my  brother 
Frank,  and  one  of  my  fisher-boy  playmates — ^brought  back 
upon  me — all! 

Sinfi  came  to  me. 

"What  is  it,  brother?"  said  she. 

"Sinfi,"  I  cried,  "what  was  that  saying  of  your  mother's 
about  fathers  and  children?" 

"My  poor  mammy's  daddy,  when  she  wur  a  little  chavi, 
beat  her  so  cruel  that  she  was  a  ailin'  woman  all  her  life, 
and  she  used  to  say,  'For  good  or  for  ill,  you  must  dig 
deep  to  bury  your  daddy'." 


190  Aylwin 

I  went  back  and  resumed  my  seat  by  Wilderspin's  side, 
while  Sinfi  returned  to  Cyril. 

Wilderspin  evidently  thought  that  I  had  been  overcome 
by  the  marvellous  power  of  his  description,  and  went  on 
as  though  there  had  been  no  interruption. 

"Isis,"  said  he,  "stands  before  you;  Isis,  not  matronly 
and  stern  as  the  mother  of  Horus,  nor  as  the  Isis  of  the 
licentious  orgies;  but  (as  Philip  Aylwin  says)  'Isis,  the 
maiden,  gazing  around  her,  with  pure  but  mystic  eyes.'  " 

"And  you  got  from  my  father's  book.  The  Veiled  Queen, 
all  this" — I  was  going  to  add, — "jumble  of  classic  story  and 
mediaeval  mysticism," — but  I  stopped  short  in  time. 

"All  this  and  more — a  thousand  times  more  than  could  be 
rendered  by  the  art  of  any  painter.  For  the  age  that 
Carlyle  spits  at  and  the  great  and  good  John  Ruskin  scorns 
is  gross,  Mr,  Aylwin;  ihe  age  is  grovelling  and  gross. 
No  wonder,  then,  that  Art  in  our  time  has  nothing  but  tech- 
nical excellence;  that  it  despises, conscience,  despises  aspira- 
tion, despises  soul,  despises  even  ideas — ^that  it  is  worthless, 
all  worthless." 

"Except  as  practised  in  a  certain  temple  of  art  in  a  cer- 
tain part  of  London  that  shall  be  nameless,  whence  Calliope, 
Euterpe,  and  all  the  rhythmic  sisters  are  banished,"  inter- 
posed Cyril. 

"But  how  did  you  attain  to  this  superlative  excellence, 
Mr.  Wilderspin?"  I  asked. 

"That  would  indeed  be  a  long  story  to  tell,"  said  he.  "Yet 
Philip  Aylwin's  son  has  a  right  to  know  all  that  I  can  tell. 
My  dear  friend  here  knows  that,  though  famous  now,  I 
climbed  the  ladder  of  Art  from  the  bottom  rung;  nay, 
before  I  could  even  reach  the  bottom  rung,  what  a  toilsome 
journey  was  mine  to  get  within  sight  of  the  ladder  at  all! 
The  future  biographer  of  the  painter  of  'Faith  and  Love'  will 
have  to  record  that  he  was  born  in  a  hovel;  that  he  was 
nursed  in  a  smithy;  that  his  cradle  was  a  piece  of  board 
suspended  from  the  smithy  ceiling  by  a  chain,  which  his 
mother — his  widowed  mother — kept  swinging  by  an 
occasional  touch  in  the  intervals  of  her  labours  at  the 
forge." 

I  did  not  even  smile  at  this  speech,  so  entirely  was  the 
effect  of  its  egotism  killed  by  the  wonderful  way  of  pro- 
nouncing the  word  "mother." 

"You  have  heard,"  he  continued  in  a  voice  whose  in- 


The  Leader  of  the  Aylwinians        1 9 1 

tense  earnestness  had  an  irresistible  fascination  for  the  ear, 
like  that  of  a  Hindoo  charmer — "you  have  heard  of  the 
mother-bird  who  feeds  her  young  from  the  blood  of  her 
own  breast ;  that  bird  but  feebly  typifies  her  whom  God,  in 
His  abundant  love  of  me,  gave  me  for  a  mother.  There 
were  ten  of  us — ten  little  children.  My  mother  was  a 
female  blacksmith  of  Oldhill,  who  for  four  shillings  and 
sixpence  a  week  worked  sixteen  hours  a  day  for  the  fogger, 
hammering  hot  iron  into  nails.  The  scar  upon  my  fore- 
head— look !  it  is  shaped  like  the  red-hot  nail  that  one  day 
leapt  upon  me  from  her  anvil,  as  I  lay  asleep  in  my  swing 
above  her  head.  I  would  not  lose  it  for  all  the  diadems 
of  all  the  monarchs  of  this  world.  She  was  much  too  poor 
to  educate  us.  When  the  wolf  is  at  the  door,  Mr.  Aylwin, 
and  the  very  flesh  and  blood  of  the  babes  in  danger  of 
perishing,  what  mother  can  find  time  to  think  of  education, 
to  think  even  of  the  salvation  of  the  soul, — to  think  of 
anything  but  food — food?  Have  you  ever  wanted  food, 
Mr.  Aylwin?"  he  suddenly  said  in  a  voice  so  magnetic  from 
its  very  earnestness,  that  I  seemed  for  the  moment  to  feel 
the  faintness  of  hunger. 

"No,  no,"  I  said,  a  tide  of  grief  rushing  upon  me;  "but 
there  is  one  who  perhaps — there  is  one  I  love  more  dearly 
than  your  mother  loved  her  babes " 

Sinfi  rose,  and  came  and  placed  her  hand  upon  my  shoul- 
der and  whispered : 

"She  ain't  a-starvin,'  brother;  she  never  starved  on  the 
hills.  She's  only  jest  a-beggin'  her  bread  for  a  little  while, 
that's  all." 

And  then,  after  laying  her  hand  upon  my  forehead,  soft 
and  soothing,  she  returned  to  Cyril's  side. 

"No  one  who  has  never  v/anted  food  knows  what  life 
is,"  said  Wilderspin,  taking  but  little  heed  of  even  so  violent 
an  interruption  as  this.  "No  one  has  been  entirely  educated, 
Mr.  Aylwin — no  one  knows  the  real  primal  meaning  of  that 
pathetic  word  Man — no  one  knows  the  true  meaning  of 
Man's  position  here  among  the  other  living  creatures  oi 
this  world,  if  he  has  never  wanted  food.  Hunger  gives  a 
new  seeing  to  the  eyes." 

"That's  as  true  as  the  blessed  stars,"  muttered  old  Mrs. 
Boswell,  Rhona's  beloved  granny,  who  was  squatting  on  a 
rug  next  to  her  son  Jericho,  with  a  pipe  in  her  mouth,  weav- 
ing fancy  baskets,  and  listening  intently.     "The  very  airth 


192  Aylwin 

under  your  feet  seems  to  be  a-sinkin'  away,  and  the  sweet 
sunshine  itself  seems  as  if  it  all  belonged  to  the  Gorgios, 
when  you're  a-follerin'  the  patrin  with  the  emp'y  belly." 

"I  thank  God,"  continued  Wilderspin,  "that  I  once 
wanted  food." 

"More  nor  I  do,"  muttered  old  Mrs.  Boswell,  as  she  went 
on  weaving;  "no  mammy  as  ever  felt  a  little  chavo* 
a-suckin'  at  her  burkf  never  thanked  God  for  wantin'  food ; 
it  dries  the  milk,  or  else  it  sp'iles  it." 

"In  no  way,"  said  Wilderspin,  "has  the  spirit-world 
neglected  the  education  of  the  apostle  of  spiritual  beauty.  I 
became  a  'blower'  in  the  smithy.  As  a  child,  from  early 
sunrise  till  nearly  midnight,  I  blew  the  bellows  for  eighteen- 
pence  a  week.  But  long  before  I  could  read  or  write  my 
mother  knew  that  I  was  set  apart  for  great  things.  She 
knew,  from  the  profiles  I  used  to  trace  with  the  point  of 
a  nail  on  the  smithy  walls,  that,  unless  the  heavy  world 
pressed  too  heavily  upon  me,  I  should  become  a  great 
painter.  Except  anxiety  about  my  mother  and  my  little 
brothers  and  sisters,  I,  for  my  part,  had  no  thought  besides 
this  of  being  some  day  a  painter.  Except  love  for  her  and 
for  them,  I  had  no  other  passion.  By  assiduous  attendance  at 
night-schools  I  learnt  to  read  and  write.  This  enabled  me  to 
take  a  better  berth  in  Black  Waggon  Street,  where  I  learned 
enough  to  take  lessons  in  drawing  from  the  reduced  widow 
of  a  once  prosperous  fogger.  But  ah  !  so  eager  was  I  to  learn, 
that  I  did  not  notice  how  my  mother  was  fading,  wasting, 
dying  slowly.  It  was  not  till  too  late  that  I  learnt  the  appall- 
ing truth,  that  while  the  babes  had  been  nourished,  the 
mother  had  starved — starved!  On  a  few  ounces  of  bread  a 
day  no  woman  can  work  the  'Olliver'  and  prod  the  fire. 
Her  last  whispers  to  me  were,  'I  shall  see  you,  dear,  a  great 
painter  yet;  Jesus  will  let  me  look  down  and  watch  my  boy.' 
Ah,  Sinfi  Lovell!  that  makes  you  weep.  It  is  long,  long 
since  I  ceased  to  weep  at  that.  'Whatsoever  is  not  of  faith 
is  sin.'  " 

Rhona  Boswell,  down  whose  face  also  the  tears  were 
streaming,  nodded  in  a  patronizing  way  to  Wilderspin,  and 
said,  "Reia,  my  mammy  lives  in  the  clouds,  and  I'll  tell  her 
to  show  you  the  Golden  Hand,  I  will." 

"From  the  moment  when  I  left  my  mother  in  the  grave," 

*Child. 
fBosom. 


The  Leader  of  the  Aylwinians        193 

said  Wilderspin,  "I  had  but  one  hope,  that  she  who  was 
watching  my  endeavours  mig^ht  not  watch  in  vain.  Art 
became  now  my  religion:  success  in  it  my  soul's  goal.  I 
went  to  London;  I  soon  began  to  develop  a  great  power 
of  design,  in  illustrating  penny  periodicals.  For  years  I 
worked  at  this,  improving  in  execution  with  every  design, 
but  still  unable  to  find  an  opening  for  a  better  class  of  work. 
What  I  yearned  for  was  the  opportunity  to  exercise  the  gift 
of  colour.  That  I  did  possess  this  in  a  rare  degree  I  knew. 
At  last  I  got  a  commission.  Oh!  the  joy  of  painting  that 
first  picture!  My  progress  was  now  rapid.  But  I  had 
few  purchasers  till  Providence  sent  me  a  good  man  and 
great  gentleman,  my  dear  friend " 

"This  is  a  long-winded  speech  of  yours,  mon  cher," 
yawned  Cyril.  "Lady  Sinfi  is  going  to  strike  up  with  the 
Welsh  fiddle  unless  you  get  along  faster." 

"Don't  stop  him,"  I  heard  Sinfi  mutter,  as  she  shook 
Cyril  angrily;  "he's  mighty  fond  o'  that  mother  o'  his'n, 
an',  if  he's  ever  sich  a  born  nataral,  I  likes  him." 

"I  never  exhibited  in  the  Academy,"  continued  Wilder- 
spin,  without  heeding  the  interruption,  "I  never  tried  to 
exhibit;  but,  thanks  to  the  dear  friend  I  have  mentioned,  I 
got  to  know  the  Master  himself.  People  came  to  my  poor 
studio,  and  my  pictures  were  bought  from  my  easel  as  fast 
as  I  could  paint  them.  I  could  please  my  buyers,  I  could 
please  my  dear  friend,  I  could  please  the  Master  himself; 
I  could  please  every  person  in  the  world  but  one — myself. 
For  years  I  had  been  struggling  with  what  cripples  so 
many  artists — with  ignorance — ignorance,  Mr.  Aylwin,  of 
the  million  points  of  detail  which  must  be  understood  and 
mastered  before  ever  the  sweetness,  the  apparent  lawless- 
ness and  abandonment  of  Nature  can  be  expressed  by  Art. 
But  it  was  now,  when  I  had  conquered  these, — it  was  now 
that  I  was  dissatisfied,  and  no  man  living  was  so  miserable 
as  L  I  dare  say  you  are  an  artist  yourself,  Mr.  Aylwin,  and 
will  understand  me  when  I  say  that  artists — figure-painters, 
I  mean — are  divided  into  two  classes — those  whose  natural 
impulse  is  to  paint  men,  and  those  who  are  sent  into  the 
world  expressly  to  paint  women.  My  mother's  death  taught 
me  that  my  mission  was  to  paint  women,  women  whom 
I — being  the  son  of  Mary  Wilderspin — love  and  understand 
better  than  other  men,  because  my  soul  (once  folded  in  her 
womb)  is  purer  than  other  men's  souls." 


1 94  Aylwin 

"Is  not  modesty  a  Gorgio  virtue,  Lady  Sinfi?"  murmured 
Cyril. 

"Nothin'  like  a  painter  for  thinkin'  strong  beer  of  his- 
self,"  she  replied;  "but  I  likes  him — oh,  I  likes  him." 

"No  man  whose  soul  is  stained  by  fleshly  desire  shall 
render  in  art  all  that  there  is  in  a  truly  beautiful  woman's 
face,"  said  Wilderspin.  "I  worked  hard  at  imaginative 
painting;  I  worked  for  years  and  years,  Mr.  Aylwin,  but 
with  scant  success.  It  shames  me  to  say  that  I  was  at  last 
discouraged.  But,  after  a  time,  I  began  to  feel  that  the 
spirit-world  was  giving  me  a  strength  of  vision  second  only 
to  the  Master's  own,  and  a  cunning  of  hand  greater  than 
any  vouchsafed  to  man  since  the  death  of  Raphael.  This 
was  once  stigmatised  as  egotism;  but  'Faith  and  Love,' 
and  the  predella  'Isis  behind  the  Veil,'  have  told  another 
story.  I  did  not  despair,  I  say;  for  I  knew  the  cause  of 
my  failure.  Two  sources  of  inspiration  were  wanting  to  me 
— that  of  a  superlative  subject  and  that  of  a  superlative 
model.  For  the  first  I  am  indebted  to  Philip  Aylwin;  for 
the  second  I  am  indebted  to " 

"A  greater  still.  Miss  Gudgeon,  of  Primrose  Court,"  in- 
terjected Cyril. 

"For  the  second  I'm  indebted  to  my  mother.  And  yet 
something  else  was  wanting,"  continued  Wilderspin,  "to 
enable  me  for  many  months  to  concentrate  my  life  upon  one 
work — the  self-sacrificing  generosity  of  such  a  friend  as  I 
think  no  man  ever  had  before." 

"Wilderspin,"  said  Cyril,  rising,  "the  Duke  of  Little 
Egypt  sleeps,  as  you  see.  His  Grace  of  the  Pyramids 
snores,  as  you  hear.  The  autobiography  of  a  man  of 
genius  is  interesting;  but  I  fear  that  yours  will  have  to  be 
continued  in  our  next." 

"But  Mr.  Aylwin  wants  to  hear " 

"He  and  our  other  idyllic  friends  are  early  to  bed  and 
early  to  rise ;  they  have,  in  the  morning,  trout  to  catch  for 
breakfast,  and  we  have  a  good  way  to  walk  to-night." 

"That's  just  like  my  friend,"  said  Wilderspin.  "That's 
my  friend  all  over. 

With  this  they  left  us,  and  we  betook  ourselves  to  our 
usual  evening  occupations. 

Next  morning  the  two  painters  called  upon  us.  Wilder- 
spin  sketched  alone,  while  Sinfi,  Rhona,  Cyril  and  I  went 
trout-fishiner  in  one  of  the  numerous  brooks. 


The  Leader  of  the  Aylwinians         195 

"What  do  you  think  of  my  friend  by  this  time?"  said 
Cyril  to  me. 

"He  is  my  fifth  mystic,"  I  replied;  "I  wonder  what  the 
sixth  will  be  like.  Is  he  really  as  great  a  painter  as  he  takes 
himself  to  be,  or  does  his  art  begin  and  end  with  flowery 
words?" 

"I  believe,"  said  Cyril,  pointing  across  to  where  Wilder- 
spin  sat  at  work,  "that  the  strange  creature  under  that  white 
umbrella  is  the  greatest  artistic  genius  now  living.  The 
death  of  his  mother  by  starvation  has  turned  his  head,  poor 
fellow,  but  turned  it  to  good  purpose:  'Faith  and  Love'  is 
the  greatest  modern  picture  in  Europe.  To  be  sure,  he 
has  the  advantage  of  painting  from  the  finest  model  ever 
seen,  the  lovely,  if  rather  stupid,  Miss  Gudgeon,  of  Prim- 
rose Court,  whom  he  monopolises." 

Cyril  had  already,  during  the  morning,  told  me  that  my 
mother,  who  was  much  out  of  health,  was  now  staying  in 
London,  where  he  had  for  the  first  time  in  his  life  met  her 
at  Lord  Sleaford's  house.  Notwithstanding  their  differ- 
ences of  opinion,  my  mother  and  he  seemed  to  have  formed 
a  mutual  liking.  He  also  told  me  that  my  uncle  Cecil 
Aylwin  of  Alvanley  (who  in  this  narrative  must  not,  of 
course,  be  confounded  with  another  important  relative, 
Henry  Aylwin,  Earl  of  Aylwin)  having  just  died  and  left 
me  the  bulk  of  his  property,  I  had  been  in  much  request. 
I  consequently  determined  to  start  for  London  on  the  fol- 
lowing day,  leaving  my  waggon  in  charge  of  Sinfi,  who  was 
to  sit  to  Wilderspin  in  the  open  air. 

During  this  conversation  Sinii  was  absorbed  in  her  fish- 
ing, and  wandered  away  up  the  brook,  and  I  could  see 
that  Cyril's  eyes  were  following  her  with  great  admiration. 

Turning  to  me  and  looking  at  me,  he  said,  "Lucky  dog!" 
and  then,  looking  again  across  at  Sinfi,  he  said,  "The  finest 
girl  in  England." 


V. 

Haroun-al-Raschid, 
the   Painter 


v.  — HAROUN-AL-RASCHID, 
THE   PAINTER 


I. 

On  reaching  London  and  finding  that  it  was  necessary  I 
should  remain  there  for  some  Httle  time,  I  wrote  to  Cyril 
to  say  so,  sending  some  messages  to  Sinfi  and  her  father 
about  my  own  living-waggon. 

My  mother  was  now  staying  at  my  aunt's  house,  whither 
I  went  to  call  upon  her  shortly  after  my  arrival  in  town. 

Our  meeting  was  a  constrained  and  painful  one.  It  was 
my  mother's  cruelty  to  Winifred  that  had,  in  my  view,  com- 
pletely ruined  two  lives.  I  did  not  know  then  what  an 
awful  struggle  was  going  on  in  her  own  breast  between  her 
pride  and  her  remorse  for  having  driven  Winnie  away,  to  be 
lost  in  Wales.  Afterwards  her  sad  case  taught  me  that 
among  all  the  agents  of  soul-torture  that  have  ever  stung 
mankind  to  madness  the  scorpion  Remorse  is  by  far  the 
most  appalling.  But  other  events  had  to  take  place  before 
she  reached  the  state  when  the  scorpion  stings  to  death  all 
other  passions,  even  Pride  and  even  Vanity,  and  reigns  in 
the  bosom  supreme.  We  could  hardly  meet  without  soften- 
ing towards  each  other.  She  was  most  anxious  to  know 
what  had  occurred  to  me  since  I  left  Raxton  to  search  for 
Winnie.  I  gave  her  the  entire  story  from  my  first  seeing 
Winnie  in  the  cottage,  to  my  rencontre  with  her  at  Knockers' 
Llyn.  At  this  time  she  had  accidentally  been  brought  into 
contact  with  Miss  Dalrymple,  who  had  lately  received  a 
legacy  and  was  now  in  better  circumstances.  Miss  Dalrym- 
ple had  spoken  in  high  terms  of  Winnie's  intelligence  and 
culture,  little  thinking  how  she  was  making  my  mother  feel 
more  acutely  than  ever  her  own  wrongdoing.  Knowing 
that  I  was  very  fond  of  music,  my  mother  persuaded  me  to 


200  Aylwin 

take  her  on  several  occasions  to  the  opera  and  the  theatre. 
She  with  more  difficulty  persuaded  me  to  consult  a  medical 
man  upon  the  subject  of  my  insomnia;  and  at  last  I  agreed, 
though  very  reluctantly,  to  consult  Dr.  Mivart,  late  of  Rax- 
ton,  who  was  now  living  in  London,  Mivart  attributed 
my  ailment  (as  I,  of  course,  knew  he  would)  to  hypochon- 
dria, and  I  saw  that  he  was  fully  aware  of  the  cause.  I 
therefore  opened  my  mind  to  him  upon  the  subject.  I  told 
him  everything  in  connection  with  Winifred  in  Wales. 

He  pondered  the  subject  carefully  and  then  said: 

"What  you  need  is  to  escape  from  these  terrible  oscilla- 
tions between  hope  and  despair.  Therefore  I  think  it  best 
to  tell  you  frankly  that  Miss  Wynne  is  certainly  dead.  Even 
suppose  that  she  did  not  fall  down  a  precipice  in  Wales, 
she  is,  I  repeat,  certainly  dead.  So  severe  a  form  of 
hysteria  as  hers  must  have  worn  her  out  by  this  time. 
It  is  difficult  for  me  to  think  that  any  nervous  system  could 
withstand  a  strain  so  severe  and  so  prolonged." 

I  felt  the  terrible  truth  of  his  words,  but  I  made  no 
answer. 

"But  let  this  be  your  consolation,"  said  he.  "Her  death 
is  a  blessing  to  herself,  and  the  knowledge  that  she  is  dead 
will  be  a  blessing  to  you." 

"A  blessing  to  me?"  I  said. 

"I  mean  that  it  will  save  you  from  the  mischief  of  these 
alternations  between  hope  and  despair.  You  will  remem- 
ber that  it  was  I  who  saw  her  in  her  first  seizure  and  told 
you  of  it.  Such  a  seizure  having  lasted  so  long,  nothing 
could  have  given  her  relief  but  death  or  magnetic  trans- 
mission of  the  seizure.  It  is  a  grievous  case,  but  what 
concerns  me  now  is  the  condition  into  which  you  yourself 
have  passed.  Nothing  but  a  successful  efifort  on  your  part 
to  relieve  your  mind  from  the  dominant  idea  that  has  dis- 
turbed it  can  save  you  from — ^from " 

"From  what?" 

"That  drug  of  yours  is  the  most  dangerous  narcotic  of  all. 
Increase  your  doses  by  a  few  more  grains  and  you  will  lose 
all  command  over  your  nervous  system — all  presence  of 
mind.     Give  it  up,  give  it  up  and  enter  Parliament." 

I  left  Mivart  in  anger,  and  took  a  stroll  through  the 
streets,  trying  to  amuse  myself  by  looking  at  the  shop 
windows  and  recalling  the  few  salient  incidents  that  were 
connected  with  my  brief  experiences  as  an  art  student. 


Haroun-al-Raschid,   the  Painter        201 

Hours  passed  in  this  way,  until  one  by  one  the  shops 
were  closed  and  only  the  theatres,  public  bars,  and  supper- 
rooms  seemed  to  be  open. 

I  turned  into  a  restaurant  in  the  Haymarket,  for  I  had 
taken  no  dinner.  I  went  upstairs  into  a  supper-room,  and 
after  I  had  finished  my  meal,  taking  a  seat  near  the  window, 
I  gazed  abstractedly  over  the  bustling,  flashing  streets, 
which  to  me  seemed  far  more  lonely,  far  more  remote,  than 
the  most  secluded  paths  of  Snowdon.  In  a  trouble  such  as 
mine  it  is  not  Man  but  Nature  that  can  give  companionship. 

I  was  so  absorbed  in  my  thoughts  that  I  did  not  observe 
whether  I  was  or  was  not  now  alone  in  the  room,  till  the 
name  of  Wilderspin  fell  on  my  ear  and  recalled  me  to  my- 
self. I  started  and  looked  round.  At  a  table  near  me  sat 
two  men  whom  I  had  not  noticed  before.  The  face  of  the 
man  who  sat  on  the  opposite  side  of  the  table  confronted 
me. 

If  I  had  one  tithe  of  that  objective  power  and  that  instinct 
for  description  which  used  to  amaze  me  in  Winifred  as  a 
child,  I  could  give  here  a  picture  of  a  face  which  the  reader 
could  never  forget. 

If  it  was  not  beautiful  in  detail  it  was  illuminated  by  an 
expression  that  gave  a  unity  of  beauty  to  the  whole.  And 
what  was  the  expression?  I  can  only  describe  it  by  saying 
that  it  was  the  expression  of  genius ;  and  it  had  that  impe- 
rious magnetism  which  I  had  never  before  seen  in  any  face 
save  that  of  Sinfi  Lovell.  But  striking  as  was  the  face  of 
this  man,  I  soon  found  that  his  voice  was  more  striking 
still.  In  whatever  assembly  that  voice  was  heard,  its  in- 
describable resonance  would  have  marked  it  ofif  from  all 
other  voices,  and  have  made  the  ear  of  the  listener  eager 
to  catch  the  sound.  This  voice,  however,  was  not  the  one 
tliat  had  uttered  the  name  of  Wilderspin.  It  was  from  his 
companion,  who  sat  opposite  to  him,  with  his  great  broad 
back,  covered  with  a  smart  velvet  coat,  towards  me,  that 
the  talk  was  now  coming.  This  man  was  smoking  cigar- 
ettes in  that  kind  of  furious  sucking  way  which  is  charac- 
teristic of  great  smokers.  Much  smoking,  however,  had 
not  dried  up  his  skin  to  the  consistence  of  blotting  paper 
and  to  the  colour  of  tobacco  ash  as  it  does  in  some  cases, 
but  tobacco  juice,  which  seemed  to  ooze  from  his  face  like 
perspiration,  or  rather  like  oil,  had  made  his  complexion  of 
a  yellow-green  colour,  something  like  a  vegetable  marrow. 


202  Aylwin 

Although  his  face  was  as  hairless  as  a  woman's,  there  was 
not  a  feature  in  it  that  was  not  masculine.  Although  his 
cheek  bones  were  high  and  his  jaw  of  the  mould  which  we 
so  often  associate  with  the  prizefighter,  he  looked  as  if  he 
might  somehow  be  a  gentleman.  And  when  I  got  for  a 
moment  a  full  view  of  his  face  as  he  turned  round,  I  thought 
it  showed  power  and  intelligence,  although  his  forehead 
receded  a  good  deal,  a  recession  which  was  owing  mainly  to 
the  bone  above  the  eyes.  Power  and  intelligence  too  were 
seen  in  every  glance  of  his  dark  bright  eyes.  In  a  few  min- 
utes Wilderspin's  name  was  again  uttered  by  this  man,  and 
I  found  he  was  telling  anecdotes  of  the  eccentric  painter — 
telling  them  with  great  gusto  and  humour,  in  a  loud  voice, 
quite  careless  of  being  overhead  by  me.  Then  followed 
other  anecdotes  of  other  people — artists  for  the  most  part 
— in  which  the  names  of  Millais,  Ruskin,  Watts,  Leighton, 
and  others  came  up  in  quick  succession. 

That  he  was  a  professional  anecdote-monger  of  extraordi- 
nary brilliancy,  a  raconteur  of  the  very  first  order,  was  evi- 
dent enough.  I  found  also  that  as  a  story-teller  he  was 
reckless  and  without  conscience.  He  was,  I  thought,  in- 
venting anecdotes  to  amuse  his  companion,  whose  manifest 
enjoyment  of  them  rather  weakened  the  impression  that 
his  own  personality  had  been  making  upon  me. 

After  a  while  the  name  of  Cyril  Aylwin  came  up,  and  I 
soon  found  the  man  telling  a  story  of  Cyril  and  a  recent 
escapade  of  his  which  I  knew  must  be  false.  He  then  went 
rattling  on  about  other  people,  mentioning  names  which,  as 
I  soon  gathered,  were  those  of  female  models  known  in 
the  art  world.  The  anecdotes  he  told  of  these  were  mostly 
to  their  disadvantage.  I  was  about  to  move  to  another 
table,  in  order  to  get  out  of  earshot  of  this  gossip,  when  the 
name  "Lady  Sinfi"  fell  upon  my  ears. 

And  then  I  heard  the  other  man — the  man  of  the  musical 
voice — talk  about  Lady  Sinfi  with  the  greatest  admiration 
and  regard.  He  wound  up  by  saying,  "By  the  bye,  where 
is  she  now?  I  should  like  to  use  her  in  painting  my  new 
picture." 

"She's  in  Wales;  so  Kiomi  told  me." 

"Ah,  yes!  I  remember  she  has  an  extraordinary  passion 
for  Snowdon." 

"Her  passion  is  now  for  something  else,  though." 

"What's  that?" 


Haroun-al-Raschid,  the  Painter        203 

"A  man." 

"1  never  saw  a  girl  so  indifferent  to  men  as  Lady  Sinfi." 

"She  is  living  at  this  moment  as  the  mistress  of  a  cousin 
of  Cyril  Aylwin." 

My  blood  boiled  with  rage.  I  lost  all  control  of  myself. 
I  longed  to  feel  his  face  against  my  knuckles. 

'That's  not  true,"  I  said  in  a  rather  loud  voice. 

He  started  up,  and  turned  round,  saying  in  a  hectoring 
voice,  "What  was  that  you  said  to  me?  Will  you  repeat 
your  words?" 

"To  repeat  one's  words,"  I  said  quietly,  "shows  a  limited 
vocabulary,  so  I  will  put  it  thus, — what  you  said  just  now 
about  Sinfi  Lovell  being  the  mistress  of  Cyril  Aylwin's 
cousin  is  a  lie." 

"You  dare  to  give  me  the  lie,  sir  ?  And  what  the  devil  do 
you  mean  by  listening  to  our  conversation?" 

The  threatening  look  that  he  managed  to  put  into  his  face 
was  so  entirely  histrionic  that  it  made  me  laugh  outright. 
This  seemed  to  damp  his  courage  more  than  if  I  had  sprung 
up  and  shown  fight. 

The  man  had  a  somewhat  formidable  appearance,  how- 
ever, as  regards  build,  which  showed  that  he  possessed  more 
than  average  strength.  It  was  the  manifest  genuineness 
of  my  laugh  that  gave  him  pause.  And  when  I  sat  with 
my  elbows  on  the  table  and  my  face  between  my  palms, 
taking  stock  of  him  quietly,  he  looked  extremely  puzzled. 
The  man  of  the  musical  voice  sat  and  looked  at  me  as 
though  under  a  spell. 

"I  am  a  young  man  from  the  country,"  I  said  to  him.  "To 
what  theatre  is  your  histrionic  friend  attached?  I  should 
like  to  see  him  in  a  better  farce  than  this." 

"Do  you  hear  that,  De  Castro?"  said  the  other.  "What  is 
your  theatre?" 

"If  he  is  really  excited,"  I  said,  "tell  him  that  people 
at  a  public  supper-room  should  speak  in  a  moderate  tone 
or  their  conversation  is  likely  to  be  overheard." 

"Do  you  hear  this  young  man  from  the  country,  De 
Castro?"  said  he.  "You  seem  to  be  the  Oraculum  of  the 
hay-fields,  sir,"  he  continued,  turning  to  me  with  a  delight- 
fully humorous  expression  on  his  face.  "Have  you  any 
other  Delphic  utterance?" 

"Only  this,"  I  said,  "that  people  who  do  not  like  being 
Cfivcn  the  lie  should  tell  the  truth." 


204  Aylwin 

"May  I  be  permitted  to  guess  your  Christian  name,  sir? 
Is  it  Martin,  perchance?" 

"Yes,"  I  rephed,  "and  my  surname  is  Tupper."  He  then 
got  up  and  laid  his  hand  on  the  raconteur's  shoulder,  and 
said,  "Don't  be  a  fool,  De  Castro.  When  a  man  looks  at 
another  as  the  author  of  the  Proverbial  Philosophy  is  looking 
at  you,  he  knows  that  he  can  use  his  fists  as  well  as  his  pen." 

"He  gave  me  the  lie.    Didn't  you  hear?" 

"I  did,  and  I  thought  the  gift  as  entirely  gratuitous,  mon 
chcr,  as  giving  a  scuttleful  of  coals  to  Newcastle." 

The  anecdote-monger  stood  silent,  quelled  by  this  man's 
wit. 

Then  turning  to  me,  the  man  of  the  musical  voice  said,  "I 
suppose  you  know  something  about  my  friend,  Lady  Sinfi  ?" 

"I  do,"  I  said,  "and  I  am  Cyril  Aylwin's  cousin,  so  per- 
haps, as  every  word  your  friend  has  said  about  Sinfi  Lovell 
and  me  is  false,  you  will  allow  me  to  call  him  a  liar." 

A  look  of  the  greatest  glee  at  the  discomfiture  of  his  com- 
panion overspread  his  face. 

"Certainly,"  he  said  with  a  loud  laugh.  "You  may  call 
him  that,  you  may  qualify  the  noun  you  have  used  with  an 
adjective  if  the  author  of  the  Proverbial  Philosophy  can  think 
of  one  that  is  properly  descriptive  and  yet  not  too  unparlia- 
mentary. So  you  are  Cyril  Aylwin's  cousin.  I  have  heard 
him,"  he  said  with  a  smile  that  he  tried  in  vain  to  suppress, 
"I  have  heard  Cyril  expatiate  on  the  various  branches  of  the 
Aylwin  family." 

"I  belong  to  the  proud  Aylwins,"  I  said. 

The  twinkle  in  his  eye  made  me  adore  him  as  he  said — 
"The  proud  Aylwins.  A  man,  who  in  a  world  like  this,  is 
proud  and  knows  it,  and  is  proud  of  confessing  his  pride, 
always  interests  me,  but  I  will  not  ask  you  what  makes  the 
proud  Aylwins  proud,   sir." 

"I  will  tell  you  what  makes  me  proud,"  I  said ;  "my  great- 
grandmother  was  a  full-blooded  Gypsy,  and  I  am  proud  of 
the  descent." 

He  came  forward  and  held  out  his  hand  and  said,  "It  is 
long  since  I  met  a  man  who  interested  me" — he  gave  a 
sigh — "very  long;  and  I  hope  that  you  and  I  may  become 
friends." 

I  grasped  his  hand  and  shook  it  warmly. 

The  anecdote-monger  began  talking  at  once  about  Sinfi, 
Wilderspin  and  Cyril  Aylwin,  speaking  of  them  in  the  most 


Haroun-al-Raschid,   the  Painter         205 

genial  and  affectionate  terms.  In  a  few  minutes,  without 
withdrawing  a  word  he  had  said  about  either  of  them,  he 
had  entirely  changed  the  spirit  of  every  word.  At  first  I 
tried  to  resist  his  sophistry,  but  it  was  not  to  be  resisted. 
I  ended  by  apologising  to  him  for  my  stupidity  in  mis- 
understanding him. 

"My  dear  fellow,"  said  he,  "not  a  word,  not  a  word.  I 
admired  the  way  in  which  you  stood  up  for  absent  friends. 
Didn't  you,  D'Arcy?" 

At  this  the  other  broke  out  into  another  mellow  laugh. 
"I  did.  How's  your  cousin,  and  how's  Wilderspin?"  he 
said,  turning  to  me.    "Did  you  leave  them  well?" 

We  soon  began,  all  three  of  us,  to  talk  freely  together. 
Of  course  I  was  filled  with  curiosity  about  my  new  friends, 
especially  about  the  liar.  His  extraordinary  command  of 
facial  expression,  coupled  with  the  fact  that  he  wore  no 
hair  on  his  face,  made  me  at  first  think  he  was  a  great  actor; 
but  being  at  that  time  comparatively  ignorant  of  the  stage, 
I  did  not  attempt  to  guess  what  actor  it  was.  After  a  while 
his  prodigious  acuteness  struck  me  more  than  even  his 
histrionic  powers,  and  I  began  to  ask  myself  what  Old 
Bailey  barrister  it  was. 

Turning  at  last  to  the  one  called  D'Arcy,  I  said,  "You  are 
an  artist;  you  are  a  painter?" 

"I  have  been  trying  for  many  years  to  paint,"  he  said. 

"And  you?"  I  said,  turning  to  his  companion. 

"He  is  an  artist  too,"  D'Arcy  said,  "but  his  line  is  not 
painting — he  is  an  artist  in  words." 

"A  poet?"  I  said  in  amazement. 

"A  romancer,  the  greatest  one  of  his  time  unless  it  be  old 
Dumas." 

"A  novelist?" 

"Yes,  but  he  does  not  write  his  novels,  he  speaks  them." 

De  Castro,  evidently  with  a  desire  to  turn  the  conversa- 
tion from  himself  and  his  profession,  said,  pointing  to 
D'Arcy,  "You  see  before  you  the  famous  painter  Haroun- 
al-Raschid,  who  has  never  been  known  to  perambulate  the 
streets  of  London  except  by  night,  and  in  me  you  see 
his  faithful  vizier." 

It  soon  became  evident  that  D'Arcy  for  some  reason  or 
other  had  thoroughly  taken  to  me — more  thoroughly,  I 
thought,  than  De  Castro  seemed  to  like,  for  whenever 
D'Arcy  seemed  to  be  on  the  verge  of  asking  me  to  call 


2o6  Aylwin 

at  his  studio,  De  Castro  would  suddenly  lead  the  conversa- 
tion off  into  another  channel  by  means  of  some  amusmg 
anecdote.  However,  the  painter  was  not  to  be  defeated 
in  his  intention ;  indeed  I  noticed  during  the  conversation 
that  although  D'Arcy  yielded  to  the  sophistries  of  his  com- 
panion, he  did  so  wilfully.  While  he  forced  his  mind,  as  it 
were,  to  accept  those  sophistries  there  seemed  to  be  all  the 
while  in  his  consciousness  a  perception  that  sophistries  they 
were.  He  ended  by  giving  me  his  address  and  inviting  me 
to  call  upon  him. 

"I  am  only  making  a  brief  stay  in  London,"  he  said ;  "I 
am  working  hard  at  a  picture  in  the  country,  but  business 
just  now  calls  me  to  London  for  a  short  time." 

With  this  we  parted  at  the  door  of  the  restaurant. 


IL 

It  was  through  the  merest  accident  that  I  saw  these  two 
men  again. 

One  evening  I  had  been  dining  with  my  mother  and  aunt. 
I  think  I  may  say  that  I  had  now  become  entirely  reconciled 
to  my  mother.  I  used  to  call  upon  her  often,  and  at  every 
call  I  could  not  but  observe  how  dire  was  the  struggle  going 
on  within  her  breast  between  pride  and  remorse.  She  felt, 
and  rightly  felt,  that  the  loss  of  Winifred  among  the  Welsh 
hills  had  been  due  to  her  harshness  in  sending  the  stricken 
girl  away  from  Raxton,  to  say  nothing  of  her  breaking  her 
word  with  me  after  having  promised  to  take  my  place  and 
watch  for  the  exposure  of  the  cross  by  the  wash  of  the  tides 
until  the  danger  was  certainly  past. 

But  against  my  aunt  I  cherished  a  stronger  resentment 
every  day.  She  it  was  with  her  inferior  intellect  and  insect 
soul  who  had  in  my  childhood  prejudiced  my  mother  against 
me  and  in  favour  of  Frank,  because  I  showed  signs  of  my 
descent  from  Fenella  Stanley  while  Frank  did  not.  She  it 
was  who  first  planted  in  my  mother's  mind  the  seeds  of 
prejudice  against  Winnie  as  being  the  daughter  of  Tom 
Wynne. 

The  influence  of  such  a  paltry  nature  upon  a  woman  of 
my  mother's  strength  and  endowments  had  always  aston- 
ished as  much  as  it  had  irritated  me. 


Haroun-al-Raschid,   the  Painter         207 

I  had  not  learnt  then  what  I  fully  learnt  afterwards,  that 
in  this  life  it  is  mostly  the  dull  and  stupid  people  who 
dominate  the  clever  ones — that  it  is,  in  short,  the  fools  who 
govern  the  world. 

I  should,  of  course,  never  have  gone  to  Belgrave  Square 
at  all  had  it  not  been  to  see  my  mother.  Such  a  common- 
place slave  of  convention  was  my  aunt,  that,  on  the  even- 
ing I  am  now  mentioning,  she  had  scarcely  spoken  to  me 
during  dinner,  because,  having  been  detained  at  the  solici- 
tors', I  had  found  it  quite  impossible  to  go  to  my  hotel  to 
dress  for  her  ridiculous  seven  o'clock  dinner. 

When  I  found  that  my  mother  had  actually  taken  this  in- 
ferior woman  into  her  confidence  in  regard  to  my  affairs 
and  told  her  all  about  Winnie  and  the  cross,  my  dislike  of 
her  became  intensified,  and  on  this  evening  my  mother  very 
much  vexed  me  in  the  drawing-room  by  taking  the  cross 
from  a  cabinet  and  saying  to  me : 

"What  is  now  to  be  done  with  this?  All  along  the  coast 
there  are  such  notions  about  its  value  that  to  replace  it  in 
the  tomb  would  be  simple  madness."  I  made  no  reply. 
"Indeed,"  she  continued,  looking  at  the  amulet  as  she  might 
have  looked  at  a  cobra  uprearing  its  head  to  spring  at  her, 
"It  must  really  be  priceless.     And  to  think  that  all  this 

was  to  be  buried  in  the  coffin  of !     It  is  your  charge, 

however,  and  not  mine." 

"Yes,  mother,"  I  said,  "it  is  my  charge";  and  taking  up 
the  cross  I  wrapped  it  in  my  handkerchief. 

"Take  the  amulet  and  guard  it  well,"  she  said,  as  I  placed 
it  carefully  in  the  breast  pocket  of  my  coat. 

"And  remember,"  said  my  aunt,  breaking  into  the  con- 
versation, "that  the  true  curses  of  the  Aylwins  are  and  al- 
ways have  been  superstition  and  love-madness." 

"I  should  have  added  a  third  curse, — pride,  aunt,"  I 
could  not  help  replying. 

"Henry,"  said  she,  pursing  her  thin  lips,  "you  have  the 
obstinacy  and  the  courage  of  your  race,  that  is  to  say,  you 
have  the  obstinacy  and  the  courage  of  ten  ordinary  men, 
and  yet  a  man  you  are  not — a  man  you  will  never  be,  if 
strength  of  character,  and  self-mastery  and  power  to  with- 
stand the  inevitable  trials  of  life,  go  to  the  making  of  a 
man." 

"Pardon  me,  aunt;  but  such  trials  as  mine  are  beyond 
your  comprehension." 


2o8  Aylwin 

"Are  they,  boy?"  said  she.  "This  fancy  of  yours  for  an 
insignificant  girl — this  boyish  infatuation  which  with  any 
other  young  man  of  your  rank  would  have  long  ago  ex- 
hausted itself  and  been  forgotten — is  a  passion  that  absorbs 
your  life.  And  I  tremble  for  you:  I  tremble  for  the  house 
you  represent." 

But  I  saw  by  the  expression  on  my  mother's  face  that  my 
aunt  had  now  gone  too  far.  "Prue,"  she  said,  "your  trem- 
blings concerning  my  son  and  my  family  are,  I  assure  you, 
gratuitous.  Such  trembling  as  the  case  demands  you  had 
better  leave  to  me.  My  heart  tells  me  I  have  been  very 
wrong  to  that  poor  child,  and  I  would  give  much  to  know 
that  she  was  found  and  that  she  was  well." 

I  set  out  to  walk  to  my  hotel,  wondering  how  I  was  to 
while  away  the  long  night  until  sleep  should  come  to  relieve 
me.  Suddenly  I  remembered  D'Arcy,  and  my  promise  to 
call  upon  him.  I  changed  my  course,  and  hailing  a  hansom 
drove  to  the  address  he  had  given  me. 

When  I  reached  the  door  I  found,  upon  looking  at  my 
watch,  that  it  was  late — so  late  that  I  was  dubious  whether 
I  should  ring  the  bell.  I  remembered,  however,  that  he  told 
me  how  very  late  his  hours  were,  and  I  rang. 

On  sending  in  my  card  I  was  shown  at  once  into  the 
studio,  and  after  threading  my  way  between  some  pieces  of 
massive  furniture  and  pictures  upon  easels,  I  found  D'Arcy 
rolling  lazily  upon  a  huge  sofa.  Seeing  that  he  was  not 
alone,  I  was  about  to  withdraw,  for  I  was  in  no  mood  to 
meet  strangers.  However,  he  sprang  up  and  introduced 
me  to  his  guest,  whom  he  called  Symonds,  an  elegant- 
looking  man  in  a  peculiar  kind  of  evening  dress,  who,  as  I 
afterwards  learnt,  was  one  of  Mr.  D'Arcy's  chief  buyers. 
This  gentleman  bowed  stiffly  to  me. 

He  did  not  stay  long;  indeed,  it  was  evident  that  the 
appearance  of  a  stranger  somewhat  disconcerted  him. 

After  he  was  gone  D'Arcy  said,  "A  good  fellow!  One  of 
my  most  important  buyers.  I  should  like  you  to  know  him, 
for  you  and  I  are  going  to  be  friends,  I  hope." 

"He  seems  very  fond  of  pictures,"  I  said. 

"A  man  of  great  taste,  with  a  real  love  of  art  and 
music." 

In  a  little  while  after  this  gentleman's  departure  in  came 
De  Castro,  who  had  driven  up  in  a  hansom.  I  certainly  saw 
a  flash  of  anger  in  his  eyes  as  he  recognised  me,  but  it 


Haroun-al-Raschid,   the  Painter         209 

vanished  like  lightning,  and  his  manner  became  cordiality 
itself.  Late  as  it  was  (it  was  nearly  twelve),  he  pulled  out 
his  cigarette  case,  and  evidently  intended  to  begin  the  even- 
ing. As  soon  as  he  was  told  that  Mr.  Symonds  had  been  in, 
he  began  to  talk  about  him  in  a  disparaging  manner. 
Evidently  his  metier  was,  as  I  had  surmised,  that  of  a  pro- 
fessional talker.    Talk  was  his  stock-in-trade. 

The  night  wore  on  and  De  Castro  in  the  intervals  of  his 
talk  kept  pulling  out  his  watch.  It  was  evident  that  he 
wanted  to  be  going,  but  was  reluctant  to  leave  me  there. 
For  my  part  I  frequently  rose  to  go,  but  on  getting  a  sign 
from  D'Arcy  that  he  wished  me  to  stay  I  sat  down  again. 
At  last  D'Arcy  said  : 

"  You  had  better  go  now,  De  Castro,  you  have  kept  that 
hansom  outside  for  more  than  an  hour  and  a  half;  and  be- 
sides, if  you  stay  till  daylight  our  friend  here  will  stay 
longer,  for  I  want  to  talk  with  him  alone." 

De  Castro  got  up  with  a  laugh  that  seemed  genuine 
enough,  and  left  us. 

D'Arcy,  who  was  still  on  the  sofa,  then  lapsed  into  a 
silence  that  became  after  a  while  rather  awkward.  He  lay 
there,  gazing  abstractedly  at  the  fireplace. 

"Some  of  my  friends  call  me,  as  you  heard  De  Castro 
say  the  other  night,  Haroun-al-Raschid,  and  I  suppose  I 
am  like  him  in  some  things.  I  am  a  bad  sleeper,  and  to  be 
amused  by  De  Castro  when  I  can't  sleep  is  the  chief  of 
blessings.  De  Castro,  however,  is  not  so  bad  as  he  seems. 
A  man  may  be  a  scandal-monger  without  being  really 
malignant.  I  have  known  him  go  out  of  his  way  to  do  a 
struggling  man  a  service." 

"You  are  a  bad  sleeper?"  I  said  in  a  tone  that  proclaimed 
at  once  that  I  was  a  bad  sleeper  also. 

"Yes,"  said  he;  "and  so  are  you,  as  I  noticed  the  other 
night.  I  can  always  tell.  There  is  something  in  the  eyes 
when  a  man  is  a  bad  sleeper  that  proclaims  it  to  me." 

Then  springing  up  from  the  divan  and  laying  his  hand 
upon  my  shoulder,  he  said,  "And  you  have  a  great  trouble 
at  the  heart.  You  have  had  some  great  loss  the  effect  of 
which  is  sapping  the  very  fountains  of  your  life.  We  should 
be  friends.  We  must  be  friends.  T  asked  you  to  call  upon 
me  because  we  must  be  friends." 

His  voice  was  so  tender  that  I  was  almost  unmanned. 

I  will  not  dwell  upon  this  part  of  my  narrative;  I  will 


2 1  o  Aylwin 

only  say  that  I  told  him  something  of  my  story,  and  he  told 
me  his. 

I  told  him  that  a  terrible  trouble  had  unhinged  the  mind 
of  a  young  lady  whom  I  deeply  loved  and  that  she  had  been 
lost  on  the  Welsh  hills.  I  felt  that  it  was  only  right  that  I 
should  know  more  of  him  before  giving  him  the  more 
intimate  details  connected  with  Winnie,  myself,  and  the 
secrets  of  my  family.  He  listened  to  every  word  with  the 
deepest  attention  and  sympathy.    After  a  while  he  said: 

"You  must  not  go  to  your  hotel  to-night.  A  friend  of 
mine  who  occupies  two  rooms  is  not  sleeping  here  to-night, 
and  I  particularly  wish  for  you  to  take  his  bed,  so  that  I 
can  see  you  in  the  morning.  We  shall  not  breakfast  to- 
gether. My  breakfast  is  a  peculiarly  irregular  meal.  But 
when  you  wake  ring  your  bedroom  bell  and  order  your 
own  breakfast ;  afterwards  we  shall  meet  in  the  studio." 

I  did  not  in  the  least  object  to  this  arrangement,  for  I 
found  his  society  a  great  relief. 

Next  morning,  after  I  had  finished  my  solitary  breakfast, 
I  asked  the  servant  if  Mr.  D'Arcy  had  yet  risen.  On  being 
told  that  he  had  not,  I  went  downstairs  into  the  studio  where 
I  had  spend  the  previous  evening.  After  examining  the  pic- 
tures on  the  walls  and  the  easels,  I  walked  to  the  window 
and  looked  out  at  the  garden.  It  was  large,  and  so 
neglected  and  untrimmed  as  to  be  a  veritable  wilderness. 
While  I  was  marvelling  why  it  should  have  been  left  in 
this  state,  I  saw  the  eyes  of  some  animal  staring  at  me 
from  the  distance,  and  was  soon  astonished  to  see  that  they 
belonged  to  a  little  Indian  bull.  My  curiosity  induced 
me  to  go  into  the  garden  and  look  at  the  creature.  He 
seemed  rather  threatening  at  first,  but  after  a  while  allowed 
me  to  go  up  to  him  and  stroke  him.  Then  I  left  the  Indian 
bull  and  explored  this  extraordinary  domain.  It  was  full  of 
unkempt  trees,  including  two  fine  mulberries,  and  sur- 
rounded by  a  very  high  wall.  Soon  I  came  across  an  object 
which,  at  first,  seemed  a  little  mass  of  black  and  white  oats 
moving  along,  but  I  presently  discovered  it  to  be  a  hedge- 
hog. It  was  so  tame  that  it  did  not  curl  up  as  I  approached 
it,  but  allowed  me,  though  with  some  show  of  nervousness, 
to  stroke  its  pretty  little  black  snout.  As  I  walked  about 
the  garden,  I  found  it  was  populated  with  several  kinds  of 
animals  such  as  are  never  seen  except  in  menageries  or  in 


Haroun-al-Raschid,   the  Painter         211 

the  Zoological  Gardens.  Wombats,  kangaroos,  and  the  like, 
formed  a  kind  of  happy  family. 

My  love  of  animals  led  me  to  linger  in  the  garden.  When 
I  returned  to  the  house  I  found  that  D'Arcy  had  already 
breakfasted,  and  was  at  work  in  the  studio. 

After  greeting  me  with  the  greatest  cordiality,  he  said : 

"No  doubt  you  are  surprised  at  my  menagerie.  Every 
man  has  one  side  of  his  character  where  the  child  remains. 
I  have  a  love  of  animals  which,  I  suppose,  I  may  call  a 
passion.  The  kind  of  amusement  they  can  afford  me  is  like 
none  other.  It  is  the  self-consciousness  of  men  and  women 
that  makes  them,  in  a  general  way,  immensely  unamusing. 
I  turn  from  them  to  the  unconscious  brutes,  and  often  get 
a  world  of  enjoyment.  To  watch  a  kitten  or  a  puppy  play, 
or  the  funny  antics  of  a  parrot  or  a  cockatoo,  or  the  wise 
movements  of  a  wombat,  will  keep  me  for  hours  from  being 
bored." 

"And  children,"  I  said — "do  you  like  children?" 

"Yes,  so  long  as  they  remain  like  the  young  animals — 
until  they  become  self-conscious,  I  mean,  and  that  is  very 
soon.  Then  their  charm  goes.  Has  it  ever  occurred  to  you 
how  fascinating  a  beautiful  young  girl  would  be  if  she  were 
as  unconscious  as  a  young  animal?  What  makes  you 
sigh?" 

My  thought  had  flown  to  Winifred  breakfasting  with  her 
"Prince  of  the  Mist"  on  Snowdon.  And  I  said  to  myself. 
"How  he  would  have  been  fascinated  by  a  sight  like  that!" 

My  experience  of  men  at  that  time  was  so  slight  that  the 
opinion,  then  formed  of  D'Arcy  as  a  talker  was  not  of  much 
account.  But  since  then  I  have  seen  very  much  of  men,  and 
I  find  that  I  was  right  in  the  view  I  took  of  his  conversa- 
tional powers.  When  his  spirits  were  at  their  highest  he 
was  without  an  equal  as  a  wit,  without  an  equal  as  a  humor- 
ist. He  had  more  than  even  Cyril  Aylwin's  quickness  of 
repartee,  and  it  was  of  an  incomparably  rarer  quality.  To 
define  it  would  be,  of  course,  impossible,  but  I  might  per- 
haps call  it  poetic  fancy  suddenly  stimulated  at  moments 
by  animal  spirits  into  rapid  movements — so  rapid,  indeed, 
that  what  in  slower  movement  would  be  merely  fancy,  in 
him  became  wit.  Beneath  the  coruscations  of  this  wit  a 
rare  and  deep  intellect  was  always  perceptible. 

His  humour  was  also  so  fanciful  that  it  seemed  poetry  at 
play,  but  here  was  the  remarkable  thing:  although  he  was 


212  Aylwin 

not  unconscious  of  his  otlier  gifts,  he  did  not  seem  to  be  in 
the  least  aware  that  he  was  a  humorist  of  the  first  order; 
every  jen  d'esprit  seemed  to  leap  from  him  involuntarily, 
like  the  spray  from  a  fountain. 

While  he  was  talking  he  kept  on  painting,  and  I  said  to 
him,  "I  can't  understand  how  you  can  keep  up  a  conversa- 
tion while  you  are  at  work." 

I  took  care  not  to  tell  him  that  I  was  an  amateur  painter 
myself. 

"It  is  only  when  the  work  that  I  am  on  is  in  some  degree 
mechanical  that  I  can  talk  while  at  work.  These  flowers, 
which  were  brought  to  me  this  morning  for  my  use  in 
painting  this  picture,  will  very  soon  wither,  and  I  can  put 
them  into  the  picture  without  being  disturbed  by  talk ;  but 
if  I  were  at  work  upon  this  face,  if  I  were  putting  dramatic 
expression  into  these  eyes,  I  should  have  to  be  silent." 

He  then  went  on  talking  upon  art  and  poetry,  letting  fall 
at  every  moment  gems  of  criticism  that  would  have  made 
the  fortune  of  a  critic. 

After  a  while,  however, he  threw  down  the  brush  and  said : 

"Sometimes  I  can  paint  with  another  man  in  the  studio; 
sometimes  I  can't." 

I  rose  to  go. 

"No,  no,"  he  said;  "I  don't  want  you  to  go,  yet  I  don't 
like  keeping  you  in  this  musty  studio  on  such  a  morning. 
Suppose  we  take  a  stroll  together," 

"But  you  never  walk  out  in  the  daytime." 

"Not  often;  indeed,  I  may  say  never,  unless  it  is  to  go  to 
the  Zoo,  or  to  Jamrach's,  which  I  do  about  once  in  three 
months." 

"Jamrach's!"  I  said.  "Why,  he's  the  importer  of  animals, 
isn't  he?  Of  all  places  in  London  that  is  the  one  I  should 
should  most  like  to  see.  If  I  can  call  myself  anything  at 
all,  it  is  a  naturalist." 

"We  will  go,"  said  D'Arcy;  and  we  left  the  house. 

In  Maud  Street  a  hansom  passed  us ;  D'Arcy  hailed  it. 

"We  will  take  this  to  the  Bank,"  said  he,  "and  then  walk 
through  the  East  End  to  Jamrach's.    Jump  in." 

As  we  drove  ofT,  the  sun  was  shining  brilliantly,  and  Lon- 
don seemed  very  animated — seemed  to  be  enjoying  itself. 
Until  we  reached  the  Bank  our  drive  was  through  all  the 
most  cheerful-looking  and  prosperous  streets  of  London.  It 
acted  like  a  tonic  on  me,  and  for  the  first  time  since  my 


Haroun-al-Raschid,   the  Painter         213 

trouble  I  felt  really  exhilarated.  As  to  D'Arcy,  after  we  had 
left  behind  us  what  he  called  the  "stucco  world"  of  the  West 
End,  his  spirits  seemed  to  rise  every  minute,  and  by  the 
time  we  reached  the  Strand  he  was  as  boisterous  as  a  boy 
on  a  holiday. 

On  reaching  the  Bank  we  dismissed  the  hansom,  and  pro- 
ceeded to  walk  to  Ratclifife  Highway.  Before  reaching  it  I 
was  appalled  at  the  forbidding  aspect  of  the  neighbourhood. 
It  was  not  merely  that  the  unsavoury  character  of  the  streets 
offended  and  disgusted  me,  but  the  locality  wore  a  sinister 
aspect  which  acted  upon  my  imagination  in  the  strangest, 
wildest  way.  Why  was  it  that  this  aspect  fairly  cowed  me, 
scared  me?  I  felt  that  I  was  not  frightened  on  my  own 
account,  and  yet  when  I  asked  myself  why  I  was  frightened 
I  could  not  find  a  rational  answer. 

As  I  saw  the  sailors  come  noisily  from  their  boarding- 
houses;  as  I  saw  the  loafers  standing  at  the  street  corners, 
smoking  their  dirty  pipes  and  gazing  at  us;  as  I  saw  the 
tawdry  girls,  bare-headed  or  in  flaunting  hats  covered  with 
garish  flowers,  my  thoughts,  for  no  conceivable  reason,  ran 
upon  Winnie  more  persistently  than  they  had  run  upon  her 
since  I  had  abandoned  all  hope  of  seeing  her  in  Wales. 

The  thought  came  to  me  that,  grievous  as  was  her  fate 
and  mine,  the  tragedy  of  our  lives  might  have  been  still 
worse. 

"Suppose,"  I  said,  "that  instead  of  being  lost  in  the 
Welsh  hills  she  had  been  lost  here !"  I  shuddered  at  the 
thought. 

Again  that  picture  in  the  W^elsh  pool  came  to  me,  the 
picture  of  Winnie  standing  at  a  street  corner,  offering 
matches  for  sale.  D'Arcy  then  got  talking  about  Sinfi 
Lovell  and  her  strange  superiority  in  every  respect  to  the 
few  Gypsy  women  he  had  seen. 

"She  has,"  said  he,  "mesmeric  power;  it  is  only  semi- 
conscious, but  it  is  mesmeric.  She  exercises  it  partly 
through  her  gaze  and  partly  through  her  voice." 

He  was  still  talking  about  Sinfi  when  a  river-boy,  who 
was  whistling  with  extraordinary  brilliancy  and  gusto,  met 
and  passed  us.  Not  a  word  more  of  D'Arcy 's  talk  did  I 
hear,  for  the  boy  was  whistling  the  very  air  to  which  Winnie 
used  to  sing  tlie  Snowdon  song: — 

I  once  did  meet  a  lone  little  maid 
At  the  foot  of  y  Wyddfa  the  white. 


2 1 4  Aylwin 

I  ran  after  the  boy  and  asked  him  what  tune  he   was 
whistling. 

"What  tune?"  he  said,  "blowed  if  I  know." 

"Where  did  you  hear  it?"  I  asked. 

"Well,  there  used  to  be  a  gal,  a  kind  of  a  beggar  gal,  as 
lived  not  far  from  'ere  for  a  little  while,  but  she's  gone  away 
now,  and  she  used  to  sing  that  tune.  I  alius  remember 
tunes,  but  I  never  could  make  out  anything  of  the  words." 

D'Arcy  laughed  at  my  eccentricity  in  running  after  the 
boy  to  learn  where  he  had  got  a  tune.  But  I  did  not  tell 
him  why. 

After  we  had  passed  some  way  down  Ratcliflfe  Highway, 
D'Arcy  said,  "Here  we  are  then,"  and  pointed  to  a  shop,  or 
rather  two  shops,  on  the  opposite  side  of  the  street.  One 
window  was  filled  with  caged  birds;  the  other  with  speci- 
mens of  beautiful  Oriental  pottery  and  grotesque  curiosities 
in  the  shape  of  Chinese  and  Japanese  statues  and  carvings. 

My  brain  still  rang  with  the  air  I  had  heard  the  river-boy 
whistling,  but  I  felt  that  I  must  talk  about  something. 

"It  is  here  that  you  buy  your  wonderful  curiosities  and 
porcelain!"  I  said. 

"Partly;  but  there  is  not  a  curiosity  shop  in  London  that 
I  have  not  ransacked  in  my  time." 

The  shop  we  now  entered  reminded  me  of  that  Raxton 
Fair  which  was  so  much  associated  with  Winnie.  Its  chief 
attraction  was  the  advent  of  Wombwell's  menagerie.  From 
the  first  moment  that  the  couriers  of  that  august  establish- 
ment came  to  paste  their  enormous  placards  on  the  walls, 
down  to  the  sad  morning  when  the  caravans  left  the  market- 
place, Winnie  and  I  and  Rhona  Boswell  had  talked  "Womb- 
well."  It  was  not  merely  that  the  large  pictures  of  the  wild 
animals  in  action,  the  more  than  brassy  sound  of  the  cracked 
brass  band,  delighted  our  eyes  and  ears.  Our  olfactories 
also  were  charmed.  The  mousy  scent  of  the  animals  mixed 
with  the  scent  of  sawdust,  which  to  adults  was  so  objection- 
able, was  characterised  by  us  as  delicious.  All  these  Womb- 
well  delights  came  back  to  me  as  we  entered  Jamrach's,  and 
for  a  time  the  picture  of  Winifred  prevented  my  seeing  the 
famous  shop.  When  this  passed  I  saw  that  the  walls  of  the 
large  room  were  covered  from  top  to  bottom  with  cages, 
some  of  them  full  of  wonderful  or  beautiful  birds,  and  others 
full  of  evil-faced,  screeching  monkeys. 

While  D'Arcy  was  amusing  himself  with  a  blue-faced  rib- 


Haroun-al-Raschid,   the  Painter         215 

nosed  baboon,  I  asked  Mr.  Jamrach,  an  extremely  intelli- 
gent man,  about  the  singing  girl  and  the  Welsh  air.  But 
he  could  tell  me  nothing,  and  evidently  thought  I  had  been 
hoaxed. 

In  a  small  case  by  itself  was  a  beautiful  jewelled  cross, 
which  attracted  D'Arcy's  attention  very  much. 

"This  is  not  much  in  your  line,"  he  said  to  Jamrach.  "This 
is  European." 

"It  came  to  me  from  Morocco,"  said  Jamrach,  "and  it 
was  no  doubt  taken  by  a  Morocco  pirate  from  some  Vene- 
tian captive." 

"It  is  a  ruby  cross,"  said  D'Arcy,  "but  mixed  with  the 
rubies  there  are  beryls.  The  setting  of  the  stones  is  surely 
quite  peculiar." 

"Yes,"  said  Jamrach.  "It  is  the  curiosity  of  the  setting 
more  than  the  value  of  the  gems  which  caused  it  to  be  sent 
to  me.  I  have  offered  it  to  the  London  jewellers,  but  they 
will  only  give  me  the  market-price  of  the  stones  and  the 
gold." 

While  he  was  talking  I  pulled  out  of  my  breast  pocket  the 
cross,  which  had  remained  there  since  I  received  it  from  my 
mother  the  evening  before. 

"They  are  very  much  alike,"  said  Jamrach;  "but  the 
setting  of  these  stones  is  more  extraordinary  than  in  mine. 
And  of  course  they  are  more  than  fifty  times  as  valuable." 

D'Arcy  turned  round  to  see  what  we  were  talking  about, 
when  he  saw  the  cross  in  my  hand,  and  an  expression  of 
something  like  awe  came  over  his  face. 

"The  Moonlight  Cross  of  the  Gnostics!"  he  exclaimed, 
"you  carry  this  about  in  your  breast  pocket?  Put  it  away, 
put  it  away !    The  thing  seems  to  be  alive." 

In  a  second,  however,  and  before  I  could  answer  him, 
the  expression  passed  from  his  face,  and  he  took  the  cross 
from  my  hands  and  examined  it. 

"This  is  the  most  beautiful  piece  of  jewel  work  I  ever  saw 
in  my  life.  I  have  heard  of  such  things.  The  Gnostic  art 
of  arranging  jewels  so  that  they  will  catch  the  moon-rays 
and  answer  them  as  though  the  light  were  that  of  the  sun, 
is  quite  lost." 

We  then  went  and  examined  Jamrach's  menagerie.  I 
found  that  one  source  of  the  interest  D'Arcy  took  in  animals 
was  that  he  was  a  believer  in  Baptista  Porta's  whimsical 
theory  that  every  human  creature  resembles  one  of  the  lower 


21 6  Aylwin 

animals,  and  he  found  a  perennial  amusement  in  seeing  in 
the  faces  of  animals  caricatures  of  his  friends. 

With  a  fund  of  humour  that  was  exhaustless,  he  went 
from  cage  to  cage,  giving  to  each  animal  the  name  of  some 
member  of  the  Royal  Academy,  or  of  one  of  his  own  in- 
timate friends. 

On  leaving  Jamrach's  he  said  to  me,  "Suppose  we  make 
a  day  of  it  and  go  to  the  Zoo?" 

I  agreed,  and  we  took  a  hansom  as  soon  as  we  could  get 
one  and  drove  across  London  towards  Regent's  Park. 

Here  the  pleasure  that  he  took  in  watching  the  move- 
ments of  the  animals  was  so  great  that  it  seemed  impossible 
but  that  he  was  visiting  the  Zoo  for  the  first  time.  I  re- 
membered, however,  that  he  had  told  me  in  the  morning 
how  frequently  he  went  to  these  gardens. 

But  his  interest  in  the  animals  was  unlike  my  own,  and  I 
should  suppose  unlike  the  interest  of  any  other  man.  He 
had  no  knowledge  whatever  of  zoology,  and  appeared  to 
wish  for  none.  His  pleasure  consisted  in  watching  the  curi- 
ous expressions  and  movements  of  the  animals  and  in 
dramatising  them. 

On  leaving  the  Zoo,  I  said,  "The  cross  you  were  just  now 
looking  at  is  as  remarkable  for  its  history  as  for  its  beauty. 
It  was  stolen  from  the  tomb  of  a  near  relative  of  mine.  I 
was  under  a  solemn  promise  to  the  person  upon  whose 
breast  it  lay  to  see  that  it  should  never  be  disturbed.  But, 
now  that  it  has  been  disturbed,  to  replace  it  in  the  tomb 
would,  I  fear,  be  to  insure  another  sacrilege.  I  wonder 
what  you  would  do  in  such  a  case?" 

He  looked  at  me  and  said,  "As  it  is  evident  that  we  are 
going  to  be  intimate  friends,  I  may  as  well  confess  to  you  at 
once  that  I  am  a  mystic." 

"When  did  you  become  so?" 

"When?  Ask  any  man  who  has  passionately  loved  a 
woman  and  lost  her;  ask  him  at  what  moment  mysticism 
was  forced  upon  him — at  what  moment  he  felt  that  he  must 
cither  accept  a  spiritualistic  theory  of  the  universe  or  go 
mad;  ask  him  this,  and  he  will  tell  you  that  it  was  at  that 
moment  when  he  first  looked  upon  her  as  she  lay  dead,  with 
Corruption's  foul  fingers  waiting  to  soil  and  stain.  What 
are  you  going  to  do  with  the  cross?" 

"Lock  it  up  as  safely  as  I  can,"  I  said ;  "what  else  is  there 
to  do  with  it?" 


Haroun-al-Raschid,  the  Painter         217 

He  looked  into  my  face  and  said,  "You  are  a  rationalist." 

"I  am." 

"You  do  not  believe  in  a  supernatural  world  ?" 

"My  disbelief  of  it,"  I  said,  "is  something  more  than  an 
exercise  of  the  reason.  It  is  a  passion,  an  angry  passion. 
But  what  should  you  do  with  the  cross  if  you  were  in  my 
place?" 

"Put  it  back  in  the  tomb." 

I  had  great  difficulty  in  suppressing  my  ridicule,  but  I 
merely  said,  "That  would  be,  as  I  have  told  you,  to  insure 
its  being  stolen  again." 

"There  is  the  promise  to  the  dead  man  or  woman  on 
whose  breast  it  lay." 

"This  I  intend  to  keep  in  the  spirit  like  a  reasonable  man 
— not  in  the  letter  like " 

"Promises  to  the  dead  must  be  kept  to  the  letter,  or  no 
peace  can  come  to  the  bereaved  heart.  You  are  talking  to 
a  man  who  knows!" 

"I  will  commit  no  such  outrage  upon  reason  as  to  place  a 
priceless  jewel  in  a  place  where  I  know  it  will  be  stolen." 

"You  will  replace  the  cross  in  that  tomb." 

As  he  spoke  he  shook  my  hands  warmly,  and  said,  "An 
rcvoir.    Remember,  I  shall  always  be  delighted  to  see  you." 

It  was  not  till  I  saw  him  disappear  amongst  the  crowd 
that  I  could  give  way  to  the  laughter  which  I  had  so  much 
difficulty  in  suppressing.  What  a  relief  it  was  to  be  able  to 
do  this! 


VI. 

The    Song   of  Y    Wyddfa 


VI.— THE  SONG  OF  Y  WYDDFA 


After  this  I  had  one  or  two  interviews  with  our  soHcitor  in 
Lincoln's  Inn  Fields,  upon  important  family  matters  con- 
nected with  my  late  uncle's  property. 

I  had  been  one  night  to  the  theatre  with  my  mother  and 
my  aunt.  The  house  had  been  unusually  crowded.  When 
the  performance  was  over,  we  found  that  the  streets  were 
deluged  with  rain.  Our  carriage  had  been  called  some  time 
before  it  drew  up,  and  we  were  standing  under  the  portico 
amid  a  crowd  of  impatient  ladies  when  a  sound  fell  or 
seemed  to  fall  on  my  ears  which  stopped  for  the  moment  the 
very  movements  of  life.  Amid  the  rattle  of  wheels  and 
horses'  feet  and  cries  of  messengers  about  carriages  and 
cabs,  I  seemed  to  distinguish  a  female  voice  singing: 

"  I  once  did  meet  a  lone  little  maid 

At  the  foot  of  y  Wyddfa  the  white  ; 
Oh,  lissome  her  feet  as  the  mountain  hind, 
And  darker  her  hair  than  the  night !" 

It  was  the  voice  of  Winifred  singing  as  in  a  dream. 

I  heard  my  aunt  say : 

"Do  look  at  that  poor  girl  singing  and  holding  out  her 
little  baskets !  She  must  be  crazed  to  be  offering  baskets 
for  sale  in  this  rain  and  at  this  time  of  night." 

I  turned  my  eyes  in  the  direction  in  which  my  aunt  was 
looking,  but  the  crowd  before  me  prevented  my  seeing  the 
singer. 

"She  is  gone,  vanished,"  said  my  aunt  sharply,  for  my 
eagerness  to  see  made  me  rude. 

"What  was  she  like?"  I  asked. 

"She  was  a  young  slender  girl,  holding  out  a  bunch  of 
small  fancy  baskets  of  woven  colours,  through  which  the 
rain  was  dripping.     She  was  dressed  in  rags,  and  through 


222  Aylwin 

the  rags  snone,  here  and  there,  patches  of  her  shoulders; 
and  she  wore  a  dingy  red  handkerchief  round  her  head.  She 
stood  in  the  wet  and  mud,  beneath  the  lamp,  quite  uncon- 
scious apparently  of  the  bustle  and  confusion  around  her." 

Almost  at  the  same  moment  our  carriage  drew  up.  I 
lingered  on  the  step  as  long  as  possible.  My  mother  made 
a  sign  of  impatience  at  the  delay,  and  I  got  into  the  carriage. 
Spite  of  the  rain,  I  put  down  the  window  and  leaned  out. 
I  forgot  the  presence  of  my  mother  and  aunt.  I  forgot 
everything.    The  carriage  moved  on. 

"Winifred!"  I  gasped,  as  the  certainty  that  the  voice  was 
hers  came  upon  me. 

And  the  dingy  London  night  became  illuminated  with 
scrolls  of  fire,  whose  blinding,  blasting  scripture  seared  my 
eyes  till  I  was  fain  to  close  them:  "Let  his  children  be 
vagabonds,  and  beg  their  bread:  let  them  seek  it  also  out  of 
desolate  places." 

So  rapidly  had  the  carriage  rolled  through  the  rain,  and 
so  entirely  had  my  long  pain  robbed  me  of  all  presence  of 
mind,  that,  by  the  time  I  had  recovered  from  the  paralysing 
shock,  we  had  reached  Piccadilly  Circus.  I  pulled  the  check- 
string. 

"Why,  Henry!"  said  my  mother,  who  had  raised  the 
window,  "what  are  you  doing?  And  what  has  made  you 
turn  so  pale?" 

My  aunt  sat  in  indignant  silence. 

"Ten  thousand  pardons,"  I  said,  as  I  stepped  out  of  the 
carriage,  and  shook  hands  with  them.  "A  sudden  recollec- 
tion— important  papers  unsecured  at  my  hotel — business  in 
— in  Lincoln's  Inn  Fields.  I  will  call  on  you  in  the 
morning." 

And  I  reeled  down  the  pavement  towards  the  Haymarket. 
When  I  was  some  little  distance  from  the  carriage,  I  took  to 
my  heels  and  hurried  as  fast  as  possible  towards  the  theatre, 
utterly  regardless  of  the  people.  I  reached  the  spot  breath- 
less. I  stood  for  a  moment  staring  wildly  to  right  and  left 
of  me.  Not  a  trace  of  her  was  to  be  seen.  I  heard  a  thin 
voice  from  my  lips,  that  did  not  seem  my  own,  ask  a  police- 
man, who  was  now  patrolling  the  neighbourhood,  if  he  had 
seen  a  basket-girl  singing. 

"No,"  said  the  man,  "but  I  fancy  you  mean  the  Essex 
Street  pjcauty,  don't  you  ?  I  haven't  seen  her  for  a  long 
while  now,  but  her  dodge  used  to  be  to  come  here  on  rainy 


The  Song  of  Y  Wyddfa  223 

nights,  and  stand  bare-headed  and  sing  and  sell  jtist  when 
the  theatres  was  a-bustin'.  She  gets  a  good  lot,  I  fancy,  by 
that  dodge." 

"The  Essex  Street  Beauty?" 

"Oh,  I  thought  you  know'd  p'raps.  She's  a  strornary 
pretty  beggar-wench,  with  blue  eyes  and  black  hair,  as  used 
to  stand  at  the  corner  of  Essex  Street,  Strand,  and  the 
money  as  that  gal  got  a-holdin'  out  her  matches  and  a-sayin' 
texes  out  of  the  Bible  must  ha'  been  strornary.  So  the 
Essex  Street  Beauty's  bin  about  here  agin  on  the  rainy- 
night  dodge,  'es  she?  Well,  it  must  have  been  the  fust  time 
for  many  a  long  day,  for  I've  never  seen  her  now  for  a  long 
time.  She  couldn't  ha'  stood  about  here  for  many  minutes ; 
if  she  had  I  must  ha'  seen  her." 

I  staggered  away  from  him,  and  passed  and  repassed  the 
spot  many  times.  Then  I  extended  my  beat  about  the 
neighbouring  streets,  loitering  at  every  corner  where  a  bas- 
ket-girl or  a  flower-girl  might  be  likely  to  stand.  But 
no  trace  of  her  was  to  be  seen.  Meantime  the  rain  had 
ceased. 

All  the  frightful  stories  that  I  had  heard  or  read  of  the 
kidnapping  of  girls  came  pouring  into  my  mind,  till  my 
blood  boiled  and  my  knees  trembled.  Imagination  was 
stinging  me  to  life's  very  core.  Every  few  minutes  I  would 
pass  the  theatre,  and  look  towards  the  portico. 

The  night  wore  on  and  I  was  unconscious  how  the  time 
passed.  It  was  not  till  day-break  that  I  returned  to  my 
hotel,  pale,  weary,  bent. 

I  threw  myself  upon  my  bed:  it  scorched  me. 

I  could  not  think.  At  present  I  could  only  see — see  what? 
At  one  moment  a  squalid  attic,  the  starlight  shining  through 
patched  window-panes  upon  a  lonely  mattress,  on  which  a 
starving  girl  was  lying;  at  another  moment  a  cellar  damp 
and  dark,  in  one  corner  of  which  a  youthful  figure  was 
crouching ;  and  then  (most  intolerable  of  all !)  a  flaring  gin- 
palace,  where,  among  a  noisy  crowd,  a  face  was  looking 
wistfully  on,  while  coarse  and  vulgar  men  were  clustering 
with  cruel,  wolfish  eyes  around  a  beggar-girl.  This  I  saw 
and  more — a  thousand  things  more. 

It  was  insupportable.    I  rose  and  again  paced  the  street. 

When  I  called  upon  my  mother  she  asked  me  anxious 
questions  as  to  what  had  ailed  me  the  previous  night.    See- 


2  24  Aylwin 

ing,  however,  that  I  avoided  replying  to  them,  she  left  me 
after  a  while  in  peace. 

"Fancy,"  said  my  aunt,  who  was  writing  a  letter  at  a  little 
desk  between  two  windows, — "fancy  an  Aylwin  pulling  the 
check-string,  and  then,  with  ladies  in  the  carriage,  and  the 
rain  pouring " 

During  that  day  how  many  times  I  passed  in  front  of  the 
theatre  I  cannot  say;  but  at  last  I  thought  the  very  men  in 
the  shops  must  be  observing  me.  Again,  though  I  half 
poisoned  myself  with  my  drug,  I  passed  a  sleepless  night. 
The  next  night  was  passed  in  almost  the  same  manner  as 
the  previous  one. 


II. 

From  this  time  I  felt  working  within  me  a  great  change.  A 
horrible  new  thought  got  entire  possession  of  me.  Wherever 
I  went  I  could  think  of  nothing  but — the  curse.  I  scorned 
the  monstrous  idea  of  a  curse,  and  yet  I  was  always  think- 
ing about  it.  I  was  always  seeking  Winifred — always  spec- 
ulating on  her  possible  fate.    I  saw  no  one  in  society. 

My  time  was  now  largely  occupied  with  wandering  about 
the  streets  of  London.  I  began  by  exploring  the  vicinity 
of  the  theatre,  and  day  after  day  used  to  thread  the  alleys 
and  courts  in  that  neighbourhood.  Then  I  took  the  eastern 
direction,  and  soon  became  familiar  with  the  most  squalid 
haunts. 

My  method  was  to  wander  from  street  to  street,  looking 
at  every  poorly-dressed  girl  I  met.  Often  I  was  greeted 
with  an  impudent  laugh,  that  brought  back  the  sickening 
mental  pictures  I  have  mentioned ;  and  often  I  was  greeted 
with  an  angry  toss  of  the  head  and  such  an  exclamation  as, 
"What  d'ye  take  me  for,  staring  like  that?" 

These  peregrinations  I  used  to  carry  far  into  the  night, 
and  thus,  as  I  perceived,  got  the  character  at  my  hotel  of  a 
wild  young  man.  The  family  solicitor  wrote  to  me  again 
and  again  for  appointments  which  I  could  not  give  him. 

It  had  often  occurred  to  me  that  in  a  case  of  this  kind  the 
police  ought  to  be  of  some  assistance.  One  day  I  called 
at  Scotland  Yard,  saw  an  official,  and  asked  his  aid.     He 


The  Song  of  Y  Wyddfa  225 

listened  to  my  story  attentively,  then  said:  "Do  you  come 
from  the  missing  party's  friends,  sir?" 

"I  am  her  friend,"  I  answered — "her  only  friend." 

"I  mean,  of  course,  do  you  represent  her  father  or  mother, 
or  any  near  relative?" 

"She  is  an  orphan;  she  has  no  relatives,"  I  said. 

Pie  looked  at  me  steadily  and  said :  "I  am  sorry,  sir, 
that  neither  I  nor  a  magistrate  could  do  anything  to  aid 
you." 

"You  can  do  nothing  to  aid  me?"  I  asked  angrily. 

"I  can  do  nothing  to  aid  you,  sir,  in  identifying  a  young 
woman  you  once  heard  sing  in  the  streets  of  London,  with 
a  lady  you  saw  once  on  the  top  of  Snowdon." 

As  I  was  leaving  the  office,  he  said:  "One  moment,  sir. 
I  don't  see  how  I  can  take  up  this  case  for  you,  but  I  may 
make  a  suggestion.  I  have  an  idea  that  you  would  do  well 
to  pursue  inquiries  among  the  Gypsies." 

"Gypsies!"  I  said  with  great  heat,  as  I  left  the  office.  "If 
you  knew  how  I  had  already  'pursued  inquiries'  among  the 
Gypsies,  you  would  understand  how  barren  is  your  sugges- 
tion." 

Weeks  passed  in  this  way.  My  aunt's  ill-health  became 
rather  serious  :  my  mother  too  was  still  very  unwell.  I  after- 
wards learnt  that  her  illness  was  really  the  result  of  the  dire 
conflict  in  her  breast  between  the  old  passion  of  pride  and 
the  new  invader,  remorse.  There  were,  no  doubt,  many  dis- 
cussions between  them  concerning  me.  I  could  see  plainly 
enough  they  both  thought  my  mind  was  becoming  un- 
hinged. 

One  night,  as  I  lay  thinking  over  the  insoluble  mystery  of 
Winifred's  disappearance,  I  was  struck  by  a  sudden  thought 
that  caused  me  to  leap  from  my  bed.  What  could  have  led 
the  official  in  Scotland  Yard  to  connect  Winifred  witli 
Gypsies?  I  had  simply  told  him  of  her  disappearance  on 
Snowdon,  and  her  reappearance  afterwards  near  the  theatre. 
Not  one  word  had  I  said  to  him  about  her  early  relations 
with  Gypsies.  I  was  impatient  for  the  daylight,  in  order 
that  I  might  go  to  Scotland  Yard  again.  When  I  did  so 
and  saw  the  official,  I  asked  him  without  preamble  what  had 
caused  him  to  connect  the  missing  girl  I  was  seeking  with 
the  Gypsies. 

"The  little  fancy  baskets  she  was  selling,"  said  he.  "They 
are  often  made  by  Gypsies." 


2  26  Aylwin 

"Of  course  they  are,"  I  said,  hurrying  away.  "Why  did  I 
not  think  of  this?" 

In  fact  I  had,  during  our  wanderings  over  England  and 
Wales,  often  seen  Sinfi's  sister  Videy  and  Rhona  Boswell 
weaving  such  baskets.  Winifred,  after  all,  miglit  be  among 
the  Gypsies,  and  the  crafty  Videy  Lovell  might  have  some 
mysterious  connection  with  her;  for  she  detested  me  as 
much  as  she  loved  the  gold  "balansers"  she  could  wheedle 
out  of  me.  Moreover,  there  were  in  England  the  Hungarian 
Gypsies,  with  their  notions  about  demented  girls,  and  the 
Lo veils,  owing  to  Sinfi's  musical  proclivities,  were  just  now 
much  connected  with  a  Hungarian  troupe. 


VII. 

Sinfi's    Dukkeripen 


VII.— SINFI'S  DUKKERIPEN 


I. 

The  Gypsies  I  had  never  seen  since  leaving  them  in  Wales, 
and  I  knew  that  by  this  time  they  were  either  making  their 
circuit  of  the  English  fairs  or  located  in  a  certain  romantic 
spot  called  Gypsy  Dell,  near  Rington  Manor,  the  property 
of  my  kinsman  Percy  Aylwin,  whither  they  often  went  after 
the  earlier  fairs  were  over. 

The  next  evening  I  went  to  the  Great  Eastern  Railway 
station,  and  taking  the  train  to  Rington  I  walked  to  Gypsy 
Dell,  where  I  found  the  Lovells  and  Boswells. 

Familiar  as  I  was  with  the  better  class  of  Welsh  Gypsies, 
the  camp  here  was  the  best  display  of  Romany  well-being  I 
had  ever  seen.  It  would,  indeed,  have  surprised  those  who 
associate  all  Gypsy  life  with  the  squalor  which  in  England, 
and  especially  near  London,  marks  the  life  of  the  mongrel 
wanderers  who  are  so  often  called  Gypsies.  In  a  lovely 
dingle,  skirted  by  a  winding,  willow-bordered  river,  and 
dotted  here  and  there  with  clumps  of  hawthorn,  were  ranged 
the  "living- waggons"  of  those  trading  Romanies  who  had 
accompanied  the  "Gryengroes"  to  the  East  Anglian  and 
Midland  fairs. 

Alongside  the  waggons  was  a  single  large  brown  tent  that 
for  luxuriousness  might  have  been  the  envy  of  all  Gyspy- 
dom.  On  the  hawthorn  bushes  and  tbe  grass  was  spread, 
instead  of  the  poor  rags  that  one  often  sees  around  a  so- 
called  Gypsy  encampment,  snowy  linen,  newly  washed. 
The  ponies  and  horses  were  scattered  about  the  Dell 
feeding. 

I  soon  distinguished  Sinfi's  commanding  figure  near  that 
gorgeous  living-waggon  of  "orange-yellow  colour  with  red 
window-blinds"  in  which  she  had  persuaded  me  to  invest  my 
money  at  Chester.    On  the  foot-board  sat  two  urchins  of  the 


230  Aylwin 

Lovell  family,  "making  believe"  to  drive  imaginary  horses, 
and  yelling  with  all  their  might  to  Rhona  Boswell,  whose 
laugh,  musical  as  ever,  showed  that  she  enjoyed  the  game 
as  much  as  the  children  did.  Sinfi  was  standing  on  a  patch 
of  that  peculiar  kind  of  black  ash  which  burnt  grass  makes, 
busy  with  a  fire,  over  which  a  tea-kettle  was  hanging  from 
the  usual  iron  kettle-prop.  Among  the  ashes  left  by  a  pre- 
vious fire  her  bantam-cock  Pharaoh  was  busy  pecking, 
scratching,  and  calling  up  imaginary  hens  to  feast  upon  his 
imaginary  "finds."  I  entered  the  Dell,  and  before  Sinfi  saw 
me  I  was  close  to  her. 

She  was  muttering  to  the  refractory  fire  as  though  it 
were  a  live  thing,  and  asking  it  why  it  refused  to  burn  be- 
neath the  kettle.  A  startled  look,  partly  of  pleasure  and 
partly  of  something  like  alarm,  came  over  her  face  as  she 
perceived  me.  I  drew  her  aside  and  told  her  all  that  had 
happened  in  regard  to  Winifred's  appearance  as  a  beggar 
in  London.  A  strange  expression  that  was  new  to  me  over- 
spread her  features,  and  I  thought  I  heard  her  whisper  to 
herself,  "I  will,  I  will." 

"I  knowed  the  cuss  'ud  ha'  to  ha'  its  way  in  the  blood, 
like  the  bite  of  a  sap"  [snake],  she  murmured  to  herself. 
"And  yit  the  dukkeripen  on  Snowdon  said,  clear  and  plain 
enough,  as  they'd  surely  marry  at  last.  What's  become  o' 
the  stolen  trushel,  brother — the  cross?"  she  inquired  aloud. 
"That  trushel  will  ha'  to  be  given  to  the  dead  man  agin, 
an'  it'll  ha'  to  be  given  back  by  his  chavo  [child]  as  sworeto 
keep  watch  over  it.  But  what's  it  all  to  me?"  she  said  in  a 
tone  of  suppressed  anger  that  startled  me.  "I  ain't  a 
Gorgie." 

"But,  Sinfi,  the  cross  cannot  be  buried  again.  The  reason 
I  have  not  replaced  it  in  the  tomb, — ^the  reason  I  never  will 
replace  it  there, — is  that  the  people  along  the  coast  know 
now  of  the  existence  of  the  jewel,  and  know  also  of  my 
father's  wishes.  If  it  was  unsafe  in  the  tomb  when  only 
Winnie's  father  knew  of  it,  it  would  be  a  thousandfold  more 
unsafe  now." 

"P'raps  that's  all  the  better  for  her  an'  you :  the  new  thief 
takes  the  cuss." 

"This  is  all  folly,"  I  replied,  with  the  anger  of  one  strug- 
gling against  an  unwelcome  half-belief  that  refuses  to  be 
dismissed.  "It  is  all  moonshine-madness.  I'll  never  do  it, 
— not  at  least  while  I  retain  my  reason.     It  was  no  doubt 


Sinfi's  Dukkeripen  231 

partly  for  safety  as  well  as  for  the  other  reason  that  my 
father  wished  the  cross  to  be  placed  in  the  tomb.  It  will 
be  far  safer  now  in  a  cabinet  than  anywhere  else." 

"Reia,"  said  Sinfi,  "you  told  me  wonst  as  your  great- 
grandmother  was  a  Romany  named  Fenella  Stanley.  I 
have  axed  the  Scollard  about  her,  and  what  do  you  think 
he  says?  He  says  that  she  were  my  great-grandmother 
too." 

"Good  heavens,  Sinfi!  Well,  I'm  proud  of  my  kins- 
woman." 

"And  he  says  that  Fenella  Stanley  know'd  more  about 
the  true  dukkerin,  the  dukkerin  of  the  Romanies,  than  any- 
body as  were  ever  heerd  on." 

"She  seems  to  have  been  pretty  superstitious,"  I  said, 
"by  all  accounts.    But  what  has  that  to  do  with  the  cross?" 

"You'll  put  it  in  the  tomb  again." 

"Never  r 

"Fenella  Stanley  will  see  arter  that." 

"Fenella  Stanley!    Why,  she's  dead  and  dust." 

"That's  what  I  mean;  that's  why  she  can  make  you  do  it, 
and  will." 

"Well,  well !  I  did  not  come  to  talk  about  the  cross ; 
I  want  to  have  a  quiet  word  with  you  about  another 
matter." 

She  sprang  away  as  if  in  terror  or  else  in  anger.  Then 
recovering  herself  she  took  the  kettle  from  the  prop.  I  fol- 
lowed her  to  the  tent,  which,  save  that  it  was  made  of  brown 
blanket,  looked  more  like  a  tent  on  a  lawn  than  a  Gypsy- 
tent.  All  its  comfort  seemed,  however,  to  give  no  great  de- 
lig'ht  to  Videy,  the  cashier  and  female  financier-general  of 
the  Lovell  family,  who,  in  a  state  of  absorbed  untidiness, 
sitting  at  the  end  of  the  tent  upon  a  palliasse  covered  with 
a  counterpane  of  quilted  cloth  of  every  hue,  was  evidently 
occupied  in  calculating  her  father's  profits  and  losses  at  the 
recent  horse-fair.  The  moment  Videy  saw  us  she  hurriedly 
threw  the  coin  into  the  silver  tea-pot  by  her  side,  and  put  it 
beneath  the  counterpane,  with  that  instinctive  and  unneces- 
sary secrecy  which  characterised  her,  and  made  her  such 
an  amazing  contrast  both  to  her  sister  Sinfi  and  to  Rhona 
Boswell. 

After  Panuel  had  received  me  in  his  usual  friendly  man- 
ner, we  all  sat  down,  partly  inside  the  tent  and  partly  out- 
side, around  the  w^hite  table-cloth  that  had  been  spread  upon 


232  Aylwin 

the  grass.    The  Scollard  took  no  note  of  me,  he  had  no  eyes 
for  any  one  but  Rhona  Boswell. 

When  tea  was  over  Sinfi  left  the  camp,  and  strode  across 
the  Dell  towards  the  river.    I  followed  her. 


II. 

It  was  not  till  we  reached  a  turn  in  tihe  river  that  is  more 
secluded  than  any  other — a  spot  called  "Gypsy  Ring,"  a 
lovely  little  spot  within  the  hollow  of  birch  trees  and  gorse 
— that  she  spoke  a  few  words  to  me,  in  a  constrained  tone. 
Then  I  said,  as  we  sat  down  upon  a  green  hillock  within 
the  Ring,  "Sinfi,  the  baskets  my  aunt  saw  in  Winnie's 
hand  when  she  was  standing  in  the  rain  were  of  the  very 
kind  that  Videy  makes." 

"Oh,  that's  what  you  wanted  to  say !"  said  she ;  "you  think 
Videy  knows  something  about  Winnie.  But  that's  all  a 
fancy  o'  yourn,  and  it's  of  no  use  looking  for  Winnie  any 
more  among  the  Romanies.  Even  supposin'  you  did  hear 
the  Welsh  gillie — and  I  think  it  was  all  a  fancy — you  can't 
make  nothin'  out  o'  them  baskets  as  your  aunt  seed.  Us 
Romanies  don't  make  one  in  a  hundud  of  the  fancy  baskets 
as  is  sold  for  Gypsy  baskets  in  the  streets,  and,  besides, 
the  Ihaiwkers  and  costers  what  buys  'em  of  us  sells  'em  agin 
to  other  hawkers  and  costers,  and  there  ain't  no  tracin' 
on  'em." 

I  argued  the  point  with  "her.  At  last  I  felt  convinced  that 
I  was  again  on  the  wrong  track.  By  this  time  the  sun  had 
set,  and  the  stars  were  out.  I  had  noticed  that  during 
our  talk  Sinfi's  attention  would  sometimes  seem  to  be  dis- 
tracted from  the  matter  in  hand,  and  I  had  observed  her 
give  a  little  start  now  and  then,  as  though  listening  to 
something  in  the  distance. 

"What  are  you  listening  to?"  I  inquired  at  last. 

"Reia,"  said  Sinfi,  "I've  been  a-listenin'  to  a  v'ice  as  no- 
body can't  hear  on'y  me,  an'  I've  bin  a-seein'  a  face  peepin' 
atween  the  leaves  o'  the  trees  as  nobody  can't  see  on'y  me; 
my  mammy's  been  to  me.  I  thought  she  would  come  here. 
They  say  my  mammy's  mammy  wur  buried  here,  an'  she 
wur  the  child  of  Fenella  Stanley,  an'  that's  why  it's  called 
Gypsy  Ring.    The  moment  I  sat  down  in  this  Ring  a  mullo 


Sinfi's  Dukkeripen  233 


[spirit]  come  and  whispered  in  my  ear,  but  I  can't  make  out 
whether  it's  my  mammy  or  Fenella  Stanley,  and  I  can't 
make  out  what  she  said.  It's  hard  sometimes  for  them  as 
has  to  gnaw  their  way  out  o'  the  groun'  to  get  their  words 
out  clear.*  Howsomever,  this  I  do  know,  reia,  you  an' 
me  must  part.  I  felt  as  we  must  part  when  we  was  in  Wales 
togither  last  time,  and  now  I  knows  it." 

"Part,  Sinfil    Not  if  I  can  prevent  it." 

"Reia,"  repHed  Sinfi,  emphatically,  "when  I've  wonst 
made  up  my  mind,  you  know  it's  made  up  for  good  an'  alL 
When  us  two  leaves  this  'ere  Ring  to-night,  you'll  turn  your 
ways  and  I  shall  turn  mine." 

I  thought  it  best  to  let  the  subject  drop.  Perhaps  by 
the  time  we  had  left  the  Ring  this  mood  would  have  passed. 
After  a  minute  or  so  she  said : 

"You  needn't  see  no  fear  about  not  marryin'  Winifred 
Wynne.  You  must  marry  her;  your  dukkeripen  on  Snow- 
don  didn't  show  itself  there  for  nothink.  When  you  two 
was  a-settin'  by  the  pool,  a-eatin'  the  breakfiss,  I  was 
a-lookin'  at  you  round  the  corner  of  the  rock.  I  seed  a  little 
kindlin'  cloud  break  away  and  go  floatin'  over  your  heads, 
and  then  it  shaped  itself  into  what  us  Romanies  calls  the 
Golden  Hand.  You  know  what  the  Golden  Hand  means 
when  it  comes  over  two  sweethearts?  You  don't  believe  it? 
Ask  Rhona  Boswell!  Here  she  comes  a-singin'  to  herself. 
She's  trying  to  get  away  from  that  devil  of  a  Scollard  as 
says  she's  bound  to  marry  him.  I've  a  good  mind  to  go 
and  give  him  a  left-hand  body-blow  in  the  ribs  and  settle 
him  for  good  and  all.  He  means  misc'hief  to  the  Tamo 
Rye,  and  Rhona  too.  Brother,  I've  noticed  for  a  long  while 
that  the  Romany  blood  is  a  good  deal  stronger  in  you  than 
the  Gorgio  blood.  And  now  mark  my  words,  that  cuss  o' 
your  feyther's  '11  work  itself  out.  You'll  go  to  his  grave  and 
you'll  jist  put  that  trushul  back  in  that  tomb,  and  arter  that 
and  not  afore,  you'll  marry  Winnie  Wynne." 

Sinfi's  creed  did  not  surprise  me:  the  mixture  of  guile  and 
simplicity  in  the  Romany  race  is  only  understood  by  the  few 
who  know  it  thoroughly :  the  race  whose  profession  it  is  to 
cheat  by  fortune-telling,  to  read  the  false  "dukkeripen"  as 
being  "good  enough  for  the  Gorgios."  believe  profoundly  in 
Nature's  symbols;  but  her  bearing  did  surprise  me. 
*  Some  Romanies  think  that  spirits  rise  from  the  ground. 


2  34  Aylwin 

"Your  dukkeripen  will  come  true,"  said  she;  "but  mine 
won't,  for  I  won't  let  it." 

"And  what  is  yours?"  I  asked. 

"That's  nuther  here  nor  there." 

Then  she  stood  again  as  though  listening  to  something, 
and  again  I  thought,  as  her  lips  moved,  that  I  heard  her 
whisper,  "I  will,  I  will." 


III. 

I  HAD  intended  to  go  to  London  at  once  after  leaving  Gypsy 
Dell,  but  something  that  Sinfi  told  me  during  our  interview 
impelled  me  to  go  on  to  Raxton  Hall,  which  was  so  near. 
The  fact  that  Sinfi  was  my  kinswoman  opened  up  new  and 
exciting  vistas  of  thought. 

I  understood  now  what  was  that  haunting  sense  of  recog- 
nition which  came  upon  me  when  I  first  saw  Sinfi  at  the 
wayside  inn  in  Wales.  Day  by  day  had  proofs  been  pour- 
ing in  upon  me  that  the  strain  of  Romany  blood  in  my 
veins  was  asserting  itself  with  more  and  more  force.  Day 
by  day  I  'had  come  to  realise  how  closely,  though  the  main 
current  of  my  blood  was  English,  I  was  afifined  to  the 
strange  and  mysterious  people  among  whom  I  was  now 
thrown — the  only  people  in  these  islands,  as  it  seemed  to 
me,  who  would  be  able  to  understand  a  love-passion  like 
mine.  And  there  were  many  things  in  the  great  race  of 
my  forefathers  which  I  had  found  not  only  unsympathetic 
to  me,  but  deeply  repugnant.  In  Great  Britain  it  is  the 
Gypsies  alone  who  understand  nature's  supreme  charm,  and 
enjoy  her  largesse  as  it  used  to  be  enjoyed  in  those  remote 
times  described  in  Percy  Aylwin's  poems  before  the  Children 
of  the  Roof  invaded  the  Children  of  the  Open  Air,  before 
the  earth  was  parcelled  out  into  domains  and  ownerships  as 
it  now  is  parcelled  out.  In  the  mind  of  the  Gorgio,  the  most 
beautiful  landscape  or  the  most  breezy  heath  or  the  loveliest 
meadow-land  is  cut  up  into  allotments,  whether  of  fifty 
thousand  acres  or  of  two  roods,  and  owned  by  people.  Of 
ownership  of  land  the  Romany  is  entirely  unconscious.  The 
landscape  around  him  is  part  of  nature  herself,  and  the 
Romany  on  his  part  acknowledges  no  owner.  No  doubt  he 
yields  to  force  majeure  in  the  shape  of  gamekeeper  or  con- 


Sinfi's  Dukkeripen  235 

stable,  but  that  is  because  he  has  no  power  to  resist  it. 
Nature  to  him  is  as  free  and  unowned  by  man  as  it  was 
to  the  North  American  Indian  in  his  wigwam  before  the 
invasion  of  the  Children  of  the  Roof. 

During  the  time  that  I  was  staying  in  Flintshire  and  near 
Capel  Curig,  rambling  through  the  dells  or  fishing  in  the 
brooks,  it  was  surprising  how  soon  the  companionship  of  a 
Gorgio  would  begin  to  pall  upon  me.  And  here  the  Cymric 
race  is  just  as  bad  as  the  Saxon.  The  same  detestable  habit 
of  looking  upon  nature  as  a  paying  market  garden,  the  same 
detestable  inquiry  as  to  who  was  the  owner  of  this  or  that 
glen  or  waterfall,  was  sure  at  last  to  make  me  sever  from 
him.  But  as  to  Sinfi,  her  attitude  towards  nature,  though  it 
was  only  one  of  the  charms  that  endeared  her  to  me,  was 
not  the  least  of  them.  There  was  scarcely  a  point  upon 
which  she  and  I  did  not  touch. 

And  what  about  her  lack  of  education?  Was  that  a  draw- 
back? Not  in  the  least.  The  fact  that  she  knew  nothing 
of  that  traditional  ignorance  which  for  ages  has  taken  the 
name  of  knowledge — ^that  record  of  the  foolish  cosmogonies 
upon  which  have  been  built  the  philosophies  and  the  social 
systems  of  the  blundering  creature  Man — the  fact  that  she 
knew  nothing  of  these  gave  an  especial  piquancy  to  every- 
thing she  said.  I  had  been  trying  to  educate  myself  in  the 
new  and  wonderful  cosmogony  of  growth  which  was  first 
enunciated  in  the  sixties,  and  was  going  to  be,  as  I  firmly 
believed,  the  basis  of  a  new  philosophy,  a  new  system  of 
ethics,  a  new  poetry,  a  new  everything.  But  in  knowledge 
of  nature  as  a  sublime  consciousness,  in  knowledge  of  the 
human  heart,  Sinfi  was  far  more  learned  than  I.  And  be- 
lieving as  I  did  that  education  will  in  the  twentieth  century 
consist  of  unlearning,  of  unlading  the  mind  of  the  trash 
previously  called  knowledge,  I  could  not  help  feeling  that 
Sinfi  was  far  more  advanced,  far  more  in  harmony  than  I 
could  hope  to  be  with  the  new  morning  of  Life  of  which 
we  are  just  beginning  to  see  the  streaks  of  dawn. 

"I  must  go  and  see  Fenella's  portrait,"  I  said,  as  I  walked 
briskly  towards  Raxton, 

When  I  reached  Raxton  Hall  I  seemed  to  startle  the  but- 
ler and  the  servants,  as  though  I  had  come  from  the  other 
world. 

I  told  the  butler  that  I  should  sleep  there  that  night,  and 
then  went  at  once  to  the  picture  gallery  and  stood  before 


236  Aylwin 

Reynold's  famous  picture  of  Fenella  Stanley  as  the  Sibyl. 
The  likeness  to  Sinfi  was  striking.  How  was  it  that  it  had 
not  previously  struck  me  more  forcibly?  The  painter  had 
evidently  seized  the  moment  when  Fenella's  eyes  expressed 
that  look  of  the  seeress  which  Sinfi's  eyes,  on  occasion,  so 
powerfully  expressed.  I  stood  motionless  before  it  while 
the  ridh,  warm  light  of  evening  bathed  it  in  a  rosy  radiance. 
And  when  the  twilight  shadows  fell  upon  it,  and  when  the 
moon  again  lit  it  up,  I  stood  there  still.  The  face  seemed 
to  pass  into  my  very  being,  and  Sinfi's  voice  kept  singing 
in  my  ears,  "Fenella  Stanley's  dead  and  dust,  and  that's 
why  she  can  make  you  put  that  cross  in  your  feyther's 
tomb,  and  she  will,  she  will." 

I  left  the  picture  and  went  into  the  library:  for  I  be- 
thought me  of  that  sheaf  of  Fenella's  letters  to  my  great- 
grandfather which  he  had  kept  so  sacredly,  and  which  had 
come  to  me  as  representative  of  the  family.  My  previous 
slight  inspection  of  them  had  shown  me  what  a  wonderful 
woman  she  was,  how  full  of  ideas  the  most  original  and  the 
most  wild.  The  moment  a  Gypsy-woman  has  been  taught 
to  write  there  comes  upon  her  a  passion  for  letter-writing. 

Nothing  could  be  more  striking  than  the  contrast  be- 
tween the  illiterate  locutions  and  the  eccentric  orthography 
of  Fenella's  letters  and  the  subtle  remarks  and  speculations 
upon  the  symbols  of  nature, — the  dukkeripen  of  the  woods, 
the  streams,  the  stars,  and  the  winds.  But  when  I  came  to 
analyse  the  theories  of  man's  place  in  nature  expressed  in 
the  ignorant  language  of  this  Romany  heathen,  they 
seemed  to  me  only  another  mode  of  expressing  the  mysti- 
cism of  the  religious  enthusiast  Wilderspin,  the  more  learned 
and  philosophic  mysticism  of  my  father,  and  the  views  of 
D'Arcy,  the  dreamy  painter. 

As  I  rode  back  to  London,  I  said  to  myself,  "What 
change  has  come  over  me?  What  power  has  been  grad- 
ually sapping  my  manhood?  Why  do  I,  who  was  so  self- 
reliant,  long  now  so  passionately  for  a  friend  to  whom  to 
unburthen  my  soul — one  who  could  give  me  a  sympathy  as 
deep  and  true  as  that  I  got  from  Sinfi  Lovell,  and  yet  the 
sympathy  of  a  mind  unclouded  by  ignorant  superstitions?" 

With  the  exception  of  D'Arcy,  whose  advice  as  to  the 
disposal  of  the  cross  had  proclaimed  him  to  be  as  super- 
stitious as  Sinfi  herself,  not  a  single  friend  had  I  in  all 
London.    Indeed,  besides  Lord  Sleaford  (a  tall,  burly  man 


Sinii's   Dukkeripcn  237 

with  the  springy  movement  of  a  prize-fighter,  with  blue- 
grey  eyes,  thick,  close-cropped  hair,  and  a  flaxen  mous- 
tache, who  had  lately  struck  up  a  friendship  with  my 
mother)  I  had  not  even  an  acquaintance.  Cyril  Aylwin, 
whom  I  had  not  seen  since  we  parted  in  Wales,  was  now  on 
the  Continent  with  Wilderspin,  Strange  as  it  may  seem, 
I  looked  forward  with  eagerness  to  the  return  of  this  light- 
hearted  jester.  Cyril's  sagacity  and  knowledge  of  the 
world  had  impressed  me  in  Wales;  but  his  cynical  attitude, 
whether  genuine  or  assumed,  towards  subjects  connected 
with  deep  passion,  had  prevented  my  confiding  in  him.  He 
must,  I  knew,  have  gathered  from  Sinfi,  and  from  other 
sources,  that  I  was  mourning  the  loss  of  a  Welsh  girl  in 
humble  life;  but  during  our  very  brief  intercourse  in  Wales 
neither  of  us  had  mentioned  the  matter  to  the  other.  Now, 
however,  in  my  present  dire  strait  I  longed  to  call  in  the 
aid  of  his  penetrative  mind. 


VIII. 

Isis   as    Humourist 


VIII.— ISIS   AS   HUMOURIST 


I. 

On  reaching-  London  I  resumed  my  wanderings  through 
the  London  streets.  Bitter  as  these  wanderings  were,  my 
real  misery  now  did  not  begin  until  I  got  to  bed.  Then 
began  the  terrible  struggle  of  the  soul  that  wrestles  with  its 
ancestral  fleshly  prison — that  prison  whose  warders  are  the 
superstitions  of  bygone  ages.  "Have  you  not  seen  the 
curse  literally  fulfilled?"  ancestral  voices  of  the  blood — 
voices  Romany  and  Gorgio — seemed  whispering  in  my 
ears.  "Have  you  not  heard  the  voice  of  his  daughter  upon 
whose  head  the  curse  of  your  dead  father  has  fallen  a 
beggar  in  the  street,  while  not  all  your  love  can  succour 
her  or  reach  her?" 

And  then  my  soul  would  cry  out  in  its  agony,  "Most 
true,  Fenella  Stanley — most  true,  Philip  Aylwin;  but  be- 
fore I  will  succumb  to  such  a  theory  of  the  universe  as 
yours,  a  theory  which  reason  laughs  at  and  which  laughs  at 
reason,  I  will  die — die  by  this  hand  of  mine;  this  flesh  that 
imprisons  me  in  a  world  of  mocking  delusion  shall  be  de- 
stroyed, but  first  the  symbol  itself  of  your  wicked,  cruel  old 
folly  shall  go." 

I  would  then  leap  from  my  bed,  light  a  candle,  unlock 
my  cabinet,  take  out  the  cross,  and  holding  it  aloft  prepare 
to  dash  it  ag^ainst  the  wall,  when  my  hand  would  be  arrested 
by  the  same  ancestral  voices,  Romany  and  Gorgio,  whisper- 
ing in  my  ears  and  at  my  heart : 

"If  vou  break  that  amulet,  how  shall  you  ever  be  able  to 
see  what  would  be  the  effect  upon  Winnie's  fate  of  its 
restoration  to  your  father's  tomb?" 

And  then  I  would  laugh  aloud  and  mock  the  voices  of 
Fenella  Stanley  and  Philip  Aylwin  and  millions  of  other 
voices  that  echoed  or  murmured  or  bellowed  throug*h  half  a 


242  Aylwin 

million  years,  echoed  or  murmured  or  bellowed  from  Eu- 
ropean halls  and  castles,  from  Gypsy  tents,  from  caves  of 
palaeolithic  man. 

"How  shall  you  stay  the  curse  from  working  in  the  blood 
of  the  accursed  one?"  the  voices  would  say.  And  then  I 
would  laug-h  again  till  I  feared  the  people  in  the  hotel  would 
hear  me  and  take  me  for  a  maniac. 

But  then  my  aunt's  picture  of  a  beggar-girl  standing  in 
the  rain  would  fill  my  eyes  and  the  whispers  would  grow 
louder  than  the  voice  of  the  North  Sea  in  the  March  wind: 
■'Look  at  that.  How  dare  you  leave  undone  anything,  how- 
soever wild,  which  might  seem  to  any  one — even  to  an 
illiterate  Gypsy,  even  to  a  crazy  mystic — a  means  of  finding 
Winifred  ?  What  is  the  meaning  of  the  great  instinct  which 
has  always  conquered  the  soul  in  its  direst  need — which  has 
always  driven  man  when  in  the  grip  of  unbearable  calamity 
to  believe  in  powers  that  are  unseen?  Wbat  though  that 
scientific  reason  of  yours  tells  you  that  Winifred's  mis- 
fortunes have  nothing  to  do  with  any  curse?  what  though 
your  reason  tells  you  that  all  these  calamities  may  be  read 
as  being  the  perfectly  natural  results  of  perfectly  natural 
causes?  Is  the  voice  of  man's  puny  reason  clothed  with 
such  authority  that  it  dares  to  answer  his  heart,  which 
knows  nothing  but  that  it  bleeds?  The  terrible  facts  of 
the  case  may  be  read  in  two  ways.  With  an  inscrutable 
symmetry  these  facts  may  and  do  fit  in  with  the  universal 
theory  of  the  power  of  the  spirit-world  to  execute  a  curse 
from  the  grave.  Look  at  that  beggar  in  the  street!  How 
dare  you  ignore  the  theory  of  the  sorrowing  soul,  the  logic 
of  the  lacerated  heart,  even  though  your  reason  laughs  it 
to  scorn?" 

And  then  at  last  my  laughter  would  turn  to  moans,  and, 
replacing  the  cross  in  the  cabinet,  I  would  creep  back  to 
my  bed  ashamed,  like  a  guilty  thing — ashamed  before 
myself. 

But  the  more  I  felt  at  my  throat  the  claws  of  the  ancestral 
ogre  Superstition,  the  more  enraged  I  became  with  myself 
for  feeling  them  there.  And  the  anger  against  my  ancestors' 
mysticism  grew  with  the  growing  consciousness  that  I  was 
rapidly  yielding  to  the  very  same  mysticism  myself.  And 
then  I  would  get  up  again  and  take  from  my  escritoire  the 
sheaf  of  Fenella  Stanley's  letters  which  I  had  brought  from 
Raxton,  and  read  again  those  stories  about  curses,  such 


Isis  as  Humourist  243 

as  diat  about  the  withering  of  a  Romany  family  under  a 
dead  man's  curse  which  Winnie  had  described  to  me  that 
nigfht  on  the  sands. 


II. 

I  WAS  dehghted  to  be  told  by  Sleaford,  whom  I  met  one 
afternoon  in  Piccadilly,  that  Cyril  had  returned  to  London 
within  the  last  few  days.  "He  is  appointed  artist-in-chief 
of  the  new  comic  paper.  The  Caricaturist,"  said  Sleaford, 
"and  is  in  great  feather.  I  have  just  been  calling  upon  him." 

"The  very  man  I  want  to  see,"  I  replied. 

Sleaford  thereupon  directed  me  to  Cyril's  studio.  "You'll 
find  him  at  work,"  said  he,  "doin'  a  caricature  of  Wilder- 
spin's  great  picture,  'Faith  and  Love.'  Mother  Gudgeon  is 
sittin'  as  his  model.  He  does  everything  from  models,  you 
know." 

"Mother  Gudgeon?" 

"A  female  costermonger  that  he  picked  up  somewhere  in 
the  slums,  the  funniest  woman  in  London;  haw!  haw!  I 
promise  you  she'll  make  you  laugh  when  Cyril  draws  her 
out." 

He  then  began  to  talk  upon  the  subject  which  interested 
him  above  all  others,  the  smartness  and  swiftness  of  his 
yacht.  "I  am  trying  to  persuade  your  mother  and  aunt 
to  go  for  a  cruise  with  me,  and  I  think  I  shall  succeed." 

He  directed  me  to  the  studio  and  we  parted. 

I  found  Cyril  in  a  large  and  lofty  studio  in  Chelsea,  filled 
with  the  curiously  carved  black  furniture  of  Bombay,  mixed, 
for  contrast,  with  a  few  Indian  cabinets  of  carved  and 
fretted  ivory  exquisitely  wrought.  He  greeted  me  cordially. 
The  walls  were  covered  with  Japanese  drawings.  I  began 
by  asking  him  about  The  Caricaturist. 

"Well,"  said  he,  "now  that  the  House  of  Commons  has 
become  a  bear-garden,  and  t'other  House  a  wax-work  show, 
and  the  intellect  and  culture  of  the  country  are  leaving 
politics  to  dummies  and  cads, how  can  the  artistic  mind  con- 
descend to  caricature  the  political  world — a  world  that  has 
not  only  ceased  to  be  intelligent,  but  has  even  ceased  to  be 
funny?  The  quarry  of  The  Caricaturist  will  be  literature, 
science,  and  art.     Instead  of  wasting  artistic  genius  upon 


244  Aylwin 

such  small  fry  as  premiers,  diplomatists,  and  cabinet  min- 
isters, our  cartoons  will  be  caricatures  of  the  pictures  of 
Millais,  Leighton,  Burne-Jones,  Rossetti,  Madox  Brown, 
Holman  Hunt,  Watts,  Sandys,  Whistler,  Wilderspin:  our 
letterpress  will  be  Aristophanic  parodies  of  Tennyson, 
Browning,  Meredith,  Arnold,  Morris,  Swinburne;  game 
worth  flying  at,  my  boy!  The  art-world  is  in  a  dire  funk, 
I  can  tell  you,  for  the  artistic  epidermis  has  latterly  grown 
genteel  and  thin." 

Already  I  was  beginning  to  ask  myself  whether  it  was 
possible  to  make  a  confidant  of  this  inscrutable  cynic.  "You 
are  fond  of  Oriental  things?"  I  said,  wishing  to  turn  the 
subject.  I  looked  round  at  the  Chinese,  Indian,  and  Jap- 
anese monstrosities  scattered  about  the  room. 

"That,"  said  he,  pointing  to  a  picture  of  a  woman  (appar- 
ently drunk)  who  was  amusing  herself  by  chasing  butter- 
flies, while  a  number  of  broad-faced,  mischievous-looking 
children  were  teasing  her — "that  is  the  masterpiece  of  Ho- 
kusai.  The  legend  in  the  corner  is  'Kiyo-ja  cho  ni  tawamur- 
eru,'  which,  according  to  the  lying  Japanese  scholars,  means 
nothing  more  than  'A  cracked  woman  chasing  butterflies.' 
It  was  left  for  me  to  discover  that  it  represents  Yoka,  the 
goddess  of  Fun,  sportively  chasing  the  butterfly  souls  of 
men.  While  the  urchins,  the  little  Yokas,  are  crying,  'Ma! 
you're  screwed.'  " 

"But  what  are  these  quaint  figures?"  I  asked,  pointing  to 
certain  drawings  of  an  obese  Japanese  figure,  grinning  with 
lazy  good-humour  above  several  of  the  cabinets. 

"Hotel,  the  fat  god  of  enjoyment." 

"A  Japanese  god?"  I  asked. 

"Yes,  nothing  artistic  is  quite  right  now  unless  it  has  a 
savour  of  blue  mould  or  Japan.  Wonderful  people,  the 
Japanese,  to  have  discovered  the  Jolly  Hotel.  And  here  is 
Hotel's  wife,  the  goddess-queen  Yoka  herself — the  real 
masquerader  behind  that  mystic  veil  which  has  so  enveloped 
and  bemuddled  the  mind  of  poor  Wilderspin.  She  is  to 
figure  in  the  first  number  of  The  Caricaturist." 

He  pointed  to  an  object  I  had  only  partially  observed:  a 
broad-faced  burly  woman  of  about  forty-five  years  of  age.  in 
an  eccentric  dress  of  Japanese  silks,  standing  on  the  model- 
throne  between  two  lay  figures.  "Good  heavens !"  I  ex- 
claimed, "why,  she's  alive." 

"An'  kickin',  sir,"  said  a  voice  that  was  at  once  strident 


Isis  as  Humourist  245 

and  unctuous.  Owing  to  the  almond  shape  of  her  sparkling 
black  eyes  and  the  flatness  of  her  nose,  the  bridge  of  which 
had  been  broken  (most  likely  in  childhood),  she  looked 
absurdly  like  a  Japanese  woman,  save  that  upon  her 
quaintly-cut  mouth,  curving  slightly  upwards  horse-shoe 
fashion,  there  was  that  twitter  of  humorous  alertness  which 
is  perhaps  rarely  seen  in  perfection  except  among  the  lower 
orders,  Celtic  or  Saxon,  of  London.  Her  build  was  that  of 
a  Dutch  fisherwoman.  The  set  of  her  head  on  her  muscular 
neck  showed  her  to  be  a  woman  of  immense  strength.  But 
still  more  was  her  great  physical  power  indicated  by  her 
hands,  the  fingers  of  which  seemed  to  have  a  grip  like  that 
of  an  eagle's  claws. 

I  then  perceived  upon  an  easel  a  large  drawing.  "I  have 
not  seen  Wilderspin's  'Faith  and  Love/"  I  said;  "but  this, 
I  see,  must  be  a  caricature  of  it." 

In  it  the  woman  figured  as  Isis,  grinning  beneath  a  veil 
held  over  her  head  by  two  fantastically-dressed  figures — ^one 
having  the  face  of  Darwin,  the  other  the  face  of  Wilderspin. 

"Allow  me,"  said  Cyril,  "to  introduce  you  to  the  Goddess 
Yoka,thc  true  Isis  or  goddess  of  bohemianism  and  universal 
joke,  who,  when  she  had  the  chance  of  making  a  rational 
and  common-sense  universe,  preferred  amusing  herself 
with  flamingoes,  dromedaries,  ring-tailed  monkeys,  and 
men." 

"Pardon  me,"  I  said ;  "I  merely  called  to  see  you.  Good 
afternoon." 

"Allow  me,"  said  he,  turning  to  the  woman,  "to  introduce 
to  your  celestial  majesty  Mr.  Henry  Aylwin,  a  kinsman  of 
mine,  whose  possessions  in  Little  Egypt  are  as  brilliant 
(judging  from  the  colours  of  his  royal  waggon)  as  are  his 
possessions  in  Philistia." 

The  woman  made  me  a  curtsey  of  much  gravity. 

"And  allow  me  to  introduce  you,"  he  said,  turning  to  me, 
"to  the  real  original  Natura  Mystica, — she  who  for  ages 
upon  ages  has  been  trying  by  her  funny  goings-on  to  teach 
us  that  'the  Principinm  hylarchicnm  of  the  cosmos'  (to  usethe 
simple  phraseology  of  a  great  spiritualistic  painter)  is  the 
benign  principle  of  joke." 

The  woman  made  me  another  curtsey. 

"You  forget  your  exalted  position,  Mrs.  Gudgeon,"  said 
Cyril;  "when  a  mystic  goddess-queen  is  so  condescending 
as  to  curtsey  she  should  be  careful  not  to  bend  too  low. 


246  Aylwin 

Man  is  a  creature  who  can  never  with  safety  be  treated  with 
too  much  respect." 

"We's  all  so  modest  in  Primrose  Court,  that's  the  wust  on 
us,"  replied  the  woman.  "But,  Muster  Cyril,  sir,  I  don't 
think  you've  noticed  that  the  queen's  t'other  eye's  g"ot  dry 
now." 

Cyril  gravely  poured  her  out  a  glass  of  foaming  ale  from  a 
bottle  that  stood  upon  a  little  Indian  bamboo-table,  and 
handed  it  to  her  carefully  over  the  silks,  saying  to  me  : 

"Her  majesty's  elegant  way  of  hinting  that  she  likes  to 
wet  both  eyes!" 

Such  foolery  as  this  and  at  such  a  time  irritated  me  sorely; 
but  there  was  no  help  for  it  now.  Whether  I  should  or 
should  not  open  to  him  the  subject  that  had  taken  me 
thither,  I  must,  I  saw,  let  him  have  his  humour  till  the 
woman  was  dismissed. 

"And  now,  goddess,"  said  he,  "while  I  am  doing  justice 
to  the  design  of  your  nose " 

"You  can't  do  that,  sir,"  interjected  the  creature,  "it's  sich 
a  beauty,  ha !  ha !  I  alius  say  that  when  I  do  die,  I  shall  die 
a-larfin'.  They  calls  me  'Jokin'  Meg'  in  Primrose  Court.  I 
shall  die  a-larfin',  they  say  in  Primrose  Court,  and  so  I  shall 
— unless  I  die  a-cryin',"  she  added  in  an  utterly  dififerent 
and  tragic  voice  which  greatly  struck  me. 

"While  I  am  trying  to  do  justice  to  that  beautiful  bridge 
you  must  tell  my  friend  about  yourself  and  your  daughter, 
and  how  you  and  she  first  became  two  shining  lights  in  the 
art  world  of  London." 

"You  makes  me  blush,"  said  the  woman,  "an'  blow  me  if 
blushin'  ain't  bin  an'  made  t'other  eye  dry." 

She  then  took  another  glass  of  ale,  grinned,  shook  her- 
self, as  though  preparing  for  an  effort,  and  said : 

"Well,  you  must  know,  sir,  as  my  name's  Meg  Gudgeon, 
leaseways  that  was  my  name  till  my  darter  chrissened  me 
Mrs.  Knocker,  and  I  lives  in  Primrose  Court,  Great  Queen 
Street,  and  my  reg'lar  perfession  is  a-sellin'  coffee  'so  airly 
in  the  mornin','  and  Pve  got  a  darter  as  ain't  quite  so  'ansom 
as  me,  bein'  the  moral  of  her  father  as  is  over  the  water  a 
livin'  in  the  fine  'Straley.  And  you  must  know,  sir,  that 
one  'ot  summer's  day  there  comes  a  knock  at  our  door  as 
sends  my  'eart  into  my  mouth  and  makes  me  cry  out,  'The 
coppers,  by  jabbers!'  and  when  I  goes  down  and  opens  the 
door,  lo!  and  behold,  there  stan's  a  chap  wi'  great  goggle 


Isis  as  Humourist  247 

eyes,  dressed  all  in  shiny  black,  jest  like  a  Quaker."  (Here 
she  made  a  noise  between  a  laugh  and  a  cough.)  "I  alius  say 
that  when  I  do  die  I  shall  die  a-larfin' — unless  I  die  a-cry- 
inV'  she  added,  in  the  same  altered  voice  that  had  struck  me 
before. 

"Well,  mother,"  said  Cyril,  "and  what  did  the  shiny 
Quaker  say?" 

"They  calls  me  'Jokin'  Meg'  in  Primrose  Court.  The 
shiny  Quaker,  'e  axes  if  my  name  is  Gudgeon.  'Well,'  sez 
I,  'supposin'  as  my  name  is  Gudgeon, — I  don't  say  it  is,' 
says  I,  'but  supposin'  as  it  is, — what  then?'  says  I.  'But  is 
that  your  name?'  sez  'e.  'Supposin'  as  it  was,'  sez  I,  'what 
then?'  'Will  you  answer  my  simple  kervestion?'  sez  'e.  'Is 
your  name  Mrs.  Gudgeon,  or  ain't  it  not?'  sez  'e.  'An'  will 
you  answer  my  simple  kervestion,  Mr.  Shiny  Quaker?'  sez  I. 
'Supposin'  my  name  was  Mrs.  Gudgeon, — I  don't  say  it  is, 
but  supposin'  it  was, — what's  that  to  you?'  sez  I,  for  I 
thought  my  poor  boy  Bob  what  lives  in  the  country  had  got 
into  trouble  agin  and  had  sent  for  me." 

"Go  on,  mother,"  said  Cyril,  "what  did  the  shiny  Quaker 
say  then?" 

"  'Well  then,'  sez  'e,  'if  your  name  is  Mrs.  Gudgeon,  there 
is  a  pootty  gal  as  is,  I  am  told,  a-livin'  along  o'  you.'  'Oh, 
oh,  my  fine  shiny  Quaker  gent,'  sez  I,  an'  I  flings  the  door 
wide  open  an'  there  I  Stan's  in  the  doorway,  'it's  her  you 
wants,  is  it?'  sez  I.  'And  pray  what  does  my  fine  shiny 
Quaker  gent  want  wi'  my  darter?'  'Your  darter?'  sez  'e, 
and  opens  'is  mouth  like  this,  and  shets  it  agin  like  a  rat- 
trap.  'Yis,  my  darter,'  sez  I.  'I  s'pose,'  sez  I,  'you  think  she 
ain't  'ansom  enough  to  be  my  darter.  No  more  she  ain't,' 
sez  I;  'but  she  takes  arter  her  father,  an'  werry  sorry  she  is 
for  it,'  sez  I.  'I  want  to  put  her  in  the  way  of  'arnin'  some 
money,'  sez  'e.  'Oh,  do  you?'  sez  I.  'How  very  kind!  I'm 
sure  it  docs  a  pore  woman's  'eart  good  to  see  how  kind  you 
gents  is  to  us  pore  women's  pootty  darters,'  sez  I, — 'even 
shiny  Quaker  gents  as  is  generally  so  quiet.  You're  not  the 
fust  shiny  gent,'  sez  I,  'as  'ez  followed  'er  'um,  I  can  tell  you, 
— not  the  fust  by  a  long  way;  but  up  to  now,'  sez  I,  'I've 
alius  managed  to  send  you  all  away  with  a  flea  in  your  ears, 
cuss  you  for  a  lot  of  wicious  warments,  young  and  old,'  sez 

I,  'an'  if  you  don't  get  out,'  sez  I 'My  good  woman,  you 

mistake  my  attentions,'  sez  'e.  'Oh,  no,  I  don't,'  sez  I,  'not 
a  bit  on  it.    It's  sicli  old  sinners  as  you  in  your  shiny  black 


248  Aylwin 

coats/  sez  I,  'as  I  never  do  mistake,  and  if  you  don't  git  out 
there's  a  pump-'andle  behind  this  werry  door,  as  my  poor 
boy  Bob  brought  up  from  the  country  for  me  to  sell  for 

him '    'My  good  woman,'  sez  'e,  'I  am  a  hartist,'  sez  'e. 

'What's  that?'  sez  I,  'A  painter,'  sez  'e.  'A  painter,  air 
you?  you  don't  look  it,'  sez  I.  'P'raps  it's  holiday  time 
with  ye,'  sez  I,  'and  that  makes  you  look  so  varnishy.  Well, 
and  what  do  painters  more  nor  any  other  trade  want  with 
pore  women's  pootty  darters?'  sez  I, — 'more  nor  plumbers 
nor  glaziers,  nor  bricklayers,  for  the  matter  of  that?'  sez  I. 
'But  I  ain't  a  'ouse-painter,'  sez  'e ;  'I  paints  picturs,  and  I 
want  this  gal  to  set  as  a  moral,'  sez  'e.  'A  moral ;  an' 
what's  a  moral?'  sez  I.  'You  ain't  a-goin'  to  play  none  o' 
your  shiny-coat  larks  wi'  my  pootty  darter,'  sez  I.  'I  wants 
to  paint  her  portrait,'  sez  'e,  'an'  then  put  it  in  a  pictur'.' 
'Oh,'  sez  I,  'you  wants  to  paint  her  portrait  'cause  she's  such 
a  pooty  gal,  an'  then  you  wants  to  make  believe  you  drawed 
it  out  of  your  own  'ead,  an'  sell  it,'  sez  I.  'Oh,  but  you're 
a  downy  one,  you  are,  an'  no  mistake,'  sez  I.  'But  I  like 
you  none  the  wuss  for  that.  I  likes  a  downy  chap,  an'  I 
don't  see  no  objection  to  that ;  but  how  much  will  you  give 
to  paint  my  pooty  darter?'  sez  I.  'P'raps  I'd  better  come 
in,'  sez  he.  'P'raps  you  'ad,  if  we're  a-comin'  to  bisniss,' 
sez  I;  'so  jest  make  a  long  leg  an'  step  over  them  dirty- 
nosed  child'n  o'  Mrs.  Mix's,  a-settin'  on  my  doorstep,  an'  I 
dessay  we  ^ha'n't  quarrel  over  a  'undud  p'un'  or  two,'  sez  I. 
An'  then  I  toust  out  a-larfin'  agin — 'I  shall  die  a-larfin'." 
And  then  she  added  suddenly  in  the  same  tone  of  sadness, 
"if  I  don't  die  a-cryin'." 

"Really,  mother,"  said  Cyril,  "it  is  very  egotistical  of  you 
to  interrupt  your  story  with  prophesies  about  the  mood  in 
which  you  will  probably  shuffle  off  the  Gudgeon  coil  and 
take  to  Gudgeon  wings.  It  is  the  shiny  Quaker  we  want  to 
know  about." 

"And  then  the  shiny  Quaker  comes  in,"  said  the  woman, 
"and  I  shets  the  door,  being  be'ind  'im,  and  that  skears 
'im  for  a  moment,  till  I  bust  out  a-larfin' :  'Oh,  you  needn't 
be  afeard,'  sez  I ; — 'when  we  burgles  a  Quaker  in  Primrose 
Court  we  never  minces  'im  for  sossingers,  'e's  so  'ily  in  'is 
flavour.'  Well,  sir,  to  cut  a  long  story  short,  I  agrees  to 
take  my  pootty  darter  to  the  Quaker  gent's  studero ;  an'  I 
takes  'er  ncx'  day,  an'  'e  puts  her  in  a  pictur.  But  afore 
long,"  continued  the  old  woman,  leering  round  at  Cyril,  "lo  ! 


Isis  as  Humourist  249 

and  behold,  a  young  swell,  p'raps  a  young  lord  in  disguise 
(I  don't  want  to  be  pussonal,  an'  so  I  sha'n't  tell  his  name), 
'e  comes  into  that  studero  one  day  when  I  was  a-settlin'  up 
with  the  Quaker  gent  for  the  week's  pay,  an'  he  sets  an'  ad- 
mires me,  till  I  sets  an'  blushes  as  I'm  a-blushin'  at  this 
werry  moment ;  an'  when  I  gits  'ome,  I  sez  to  Polly  Onion 
(that's  a  pal  o'  mine  as  lives  on  the  ground  floor),  I  sez, 
'Poll,  bring  my  best  lookin'-glass  out  o'  my  bowdore,  an' 
let's  have  a  look  at  my  old  chops,  for  I'm  blow^ed  if  there 
ain't  a  young  swell,  p'raps  a  young  lord  in  disguise,  as  'ez 
fell  'ead  over  ears  in  love  with  me.'  And  sure  enough  when 
I  goes  back  to  the  studero  the  werry  nex'  time,  my  young 
swell  'e  sez  to  me,  'It's  your  own  pootty  face  as  I  wants  for 
my  moral.  I  dessay  your  darter's  a  stunner — I  ain't  seen 
her  yit — but  she  cain't  be  nothin'  to  you.'  An'  I  sez  to  'im, 
'In  course  she  ain't,  for  she  takes  arter  her  father's  family, 
pore  gal,  and  werry  sorry  she  is  for  it.'  " 

At  this  moment  a  servant  entered  and  said  Mr.  Wilder- 
spin  was  waiting  in  the  hall. 

All  hope  having  now  fled  of  my  getting  a  private  word 
with  Cyril  that  afternoon,  I  w^as  preparing  to  slip  away ;  but 
he  would  not  let  me  go. 

"I  don't  w-ant  Wilderspin  to  know  about  the  caricature  till 
it  is  finished,"  whispered  he  to  me ;  "so  I  told  Bunner  never 
to  let  him  come  suddenly  upon  me.  You'd  better  be  off, 
mother,"  he  said  to  the  old  woman,  "and  come  again  to- 
morrow." 

She  bustled  up  and,  throwing  oflf  the  Japanese  finery,  left 
the  room,  while  Cyril  removed  the  drawing  from  the  easel 
and  hid  it  away. 

"Isn't  she  delightful?"  ejaculated  Cyril. 

"Delightful?  What,  that  old  wretch?  All  that  interests 
me  in  her  is  the  change  in  her  voice  after  she  says  she  will 
die  laughing." 

"Oh,"  said  Cyril,  "she  seems  to  be  troubled  with  a 
drunken  son  in  the  country  somewhere,  who  is  always  get- 
ting into  scrapes.  Wilderspin's  in  love  with  her  daughter, 
a  wonderfully  beautiful  girl,  the  finding  of  whom  at  the  very 
moment  when  he  was  in  despair  for  the  want  of  the  right 
model  gave  the  final  turn  to  his  head.  He  thinks  she  was 
sent  to  him  from  Paradise  by  his  mother's  spirit  1  He  does, 
I  assure  you." 

"Wilderspin  in  love  with  a  model !" 


250  Aylwin 

"Oh,  not  a  la  Raphael." 

"If  you  think  Wilderspin  to  be  in  love  with  any  woman, 
you  little  know  what  love  is,"  I  exclaimed.  "He  is  in  love 
with  his  art  and  with  that  beautiful  memory  of  his  mother's 
self-sacrifice  which  has  shattered  his  reason,  but  built  up  his 
genius.  Except  as  a  means  toward  the  production  of  those 
pictures  that  possess  him,  no  model  is  anything  more  to  him 
than  his  palette-knife.     Shall  you  be  alone  this  evening?" 

"This  evening  I  dine  at  Sleaford's.  To-morrow  I  am  due 
in  Paris." 

Wilderspin,  who  had  now  entered  the  studio,  seemed 
genuinely  pleased  to  see  me  again,  and  told  me  that  in  a  few 
days  he  should  be  able  to  borrow  "Faith  and  Love"  of  its 
owner  for  the  purpose  of  beginning  a  replica  of  it,  and 
hoped  then  to  have  the  pleasure  of  showing  it  to  me. 

"I  observed  Mrs.  Gudgeon  in  the  hall,"  said  he  to  Cyril. 
"To  think  that  so  unlovely  a  woman  should,  through  an 
illusion  of  the  senses,  seem  to  be  the  mere  material  mother 
of  her  who  was  sent  to  me  from  the  spirit-world  in  the  very 
depths  of  my  despair !  Wonderful  are  the  ways  of  the  spirit- 
world.  Ah,  Mr.  Aylwin,  did  it  never  occur  to  you  how  im- 
portant is  the  expression  of  the  model  from  whom  you 
work?" 

"I  am  not  a  painter,"  I  said ;  "only  an  amateur,"  trying  to 
stop  a  conversation  that  might  run  on  for  an  hour. 

"It  has  never  occurred  to  you !  That  is  strange.  Let  me 
read  to  you  a  passage  upon  this  subject  just  published  in 
TJic  Art  Review,  written  by  the  great  painter  D'Arcy." 

He  then  took  from  Cyril's  table  a  number  of  The  Art 
Rcviciv,  and  began  to  read  aloud : — 

"It  is  a  curious  thing  that  not  only  the  general  public,  but  the  art 
connoisseurs  and  the  writers  upon  art,  although  they  know  full  well 
how  a  painter  goes  to  work  in  painting  a  picture,  speak  and  write  as 
though  they  thought  that  the  head  of  a  beautiful  woman  was  drawn 
from  the  painter's  inner  consciousness,  instead  of  from  the  real 
woman  who  sits  to  him  as  a  model.  Notwithstanding  all  the  tech- 
nical excellence  of  Raphael,  his  extraordinary  good  luck  in  finding 
the  model  that  suited  his  genius  had  very  much  to  do  with  his 
enormous  success  and  fame.  And  with  all  Michael  Angelo's  in- 
stinct for  grandeur,  if  he  had  not  been  equally  lucky  in  regard  to 
models,  he  could  never  adequately  have  expressed  that  genius.  It  is 
impossible  to  give  vitality  to  the  painting  of  any  head  unless  the 
artist  has  nature  before  him;  this  is  why  no  true  judge  of  pictures 
was  ever  deceived  as  to  the  difference  between  an  original  and  a 
copy.  It  stands  to  reason  that  in  every  picture  of  a  head,  howso- 
ever the  model's  feature  may  be  idealised.  Nature's  own  handiwork 
and  mastery  must  dominate." 


Isis  as   Humourist  251 

Here  Cyril  gently  took  the  magazine  from  Wilderspin's 
hand,  but  did  not  silence  him.  ''As  I  told  you  in  Wales," 
said  he  to  me,  "I  had  an  abundance  of  imagination,  but  I 
wanted  some  model  in  order  to  realise  it.  I  could  never 
meet  a  face  that  came  anything  nigh  my  own  ideal  of  ex- 
pression as  the  purely  spiritual  side  of  the  beauty  of  woman ; 
and  until  I  did  that  I  knew  that  I  should  achieve  nothing 
whereby  the  world  might  recognise  a  new  powder  in  art.  In 
vain  did  I  try  to  idealise  such  faces  as  did  not  please  me. 
And  this  was  because  nothing  could  satisfy  me  but  the  per- 
fect type  of  expression  which  not  even  Leonardo  nor  any 
other  painter  in  the  world  has  found — the  true  Romantic 
type." 

"I  understand  you,  Mr.  Wilderspin,"  I  said.  "This  per- 
fect type  of  expression  you  eventually  found " 

"In  the  daughter,"  said  Cyril,  "of  the  goddess  Gudgeon." 

"By  the  blessing  of  Mary  Wilderspin  in  heaven,"  said 
Wilderspin. 

And  then  the  talk  between  the  two  friends  ran  upon  ar- 
tistic matters,  and  I  heard  no  more,  for  my  mind  was  wan- 
dering up  and  down  the  London  streets. 

Wilderspin  and  I  left  the  house  together.  As  we  walked 
along,  side  by  side,  I  said  to  him:  "You  spoke  just  now  of 
your  mother's  blessing.  Am  I  really  to  understand  that 
you  in  an  age  like  this  believe  in  the  power  of  human  bless- 
ings and  human  curses  ?" 

"Do  I  believe  in  blessings  and  curses,  Mr.  Aylwin?"  said 
Wilderspin,  solemnly.  "You  are  asking  me  whether  I  am 
with  or  without  what  your  sublime  father  calls  the  'most 
powerful  of  the  primary  instincts  of  man.'  He  tells  us  in 
The  Veiled  Queen  that  'Even  in  this  material  age  of  ours 
there  is  not  a  single  soul  that  does  not  in  its  inner  depths 
acknowdedge  the  power  of  the  unseen  world.  The  most 
hardened  materialist,'  says  he,  'believes  in  what  he  calls 
sometimes  "luck"  and  sometimes  "fortune."  '  Let  me  ad- 
vise you,  Mr.  Ayhvin,  to  study  the  voice  of  your  inspired 
father.  I  will  send  a  set  of  his  wTitings  to  your  hotel  to- 
morrow. And,  Mr.  Ayhvin,  my  duty  compels  me  to  speak 
very  plainly  to  you  upon  a  subject  that  has  troubled  me 
since  I  had  the  honour  of  meeting  you  in  Wales.  There  is 
but  one  commandment  in  the  decalogue  to  which  a  distinct 
promise  of  reward  is  attached ;  it  is  that  which  bids  us 
honour  our  fathers  and  our  mothers.     Good-day,  sir." 


IX. 

The   Palace   of  Nin-ki-Gal 


IX.— THE   PALACE   OF 
NIN-KI-GAL 


Shortly  after  this  I  met  my  mother  at  our  sohcitor's  office 
according  to  appointment.  As  she  was  on  the  eve  of  de- 
parting for  the  Continent,  it  was  necessary  that  various 
family  matters  should  be  arranged.  On  the  day  following, 
as  I  was  about  to  leave  my  hotel  to  call  at  Cyril's  studio, 
rather  doubtful,  after  the  frivolity  I  had  lately  witnessed, 
as  to  whether  or  not  I  should  unburden  my  heart  to  such  a 
man,  he  entered  my  room  in  company  with  Wilderspin,  the 
latter  carrying  a  parcel  of  books. 

"I  have  brought  your  father's  works,"  Wilderspin  said. 

"Thank  you  very  much,"  I  replied,  taking  the  books. 
"And  when  am  I  to  call  and  see  your  picture?  Have  you 
yet  got  it  back  from  the  owner?" 

"  'Faith  and  Love'  is  now  in  my  studio,"  he  replied;  "but 
I  will  ask  you  not  to  call  upon  me  yet  for  a  few  days.  I 
hope  to  be  too  busily  engaged  upon  another  picture  to  af- 
ford a  moment  to  any  one  save  the  model — that  is,"  he 
added  with  a  sigh,  "should  she  make  her  appearance." 

"A  picture  of  his  called  'Ruth  and  Boaz,'  "  interposed 
Cyril.  "Wilderspin  is  repainting  the  face  from  that  favour- 
ite model  of  his  of  whom  you  heard  so  much  in  Wales.  But 
the  fact  is  the  model  is  rather  out  of  sorts  at  this  moment, 
and  Wilderspin  is  fearful  that  she  may  not  turn  up  to-day. 
Hence  the  melancholy  you  see  on  his  face.  I  try  to  con- 
sole him,  however,  by  assuring  him  that  the  daughter  of  a 
mamma  with  such  a  sharp  appreciation  of  half-crowns  as 
the  lady  you  saw  at  my  studio  the  other  day  is  sure  to  turn 
up  in  due  time  as  sound  as  a  roach." 

Wilderspin  shook  his  head  gravely. 


256  Aylwin 

''Good  heavens !"  I  muttered,  "when  am  I  to  hear  the 
last  of  painters'  models?"  Then  turning  to  Wilderspin  I 
said: 

"This  is  the  model  to  whom  you  feel  so  deeply  indebted  ?" 

"Deeply  indebted,  indeed !"  exclaimed  he  in  a  fervid  tone, 
taking  a  chair  and  playing  with  his  hat  between  his  knees, 
in  his  previous  fashion  when  beginning  one  of  his  mono- 
logues. "When  I  began  'Faith  and  Love'  I  worked  for 
weeks  and  months  and  years,  having  but  one  thought,  how 
to  give  artistic  rendering  to  the  great  idea  of  the  Renas- 
cence of  Wonder  in  Art  symbolised  in  the  vignette  in  your 
father's  third  edition.  I  was  very  poor  then;  but  to  live 
upon  bread  and  water  and  paint  a  great  picture,  and  know 
that  you  are  being  watched  by  loving  eyes  above, — there  is 
no  joy  like  that.  I  found  a  model — a  fine  and  a  beautiful 
woman,  the  same  magnificent  blonde  who  sat  for  so  many 
of  the  Master's  great  pictures.  For  a  long  time  my  work 
delighted  me ;  but  after  aw'hile  a  suspicion,  and  then  a  sick- 
ening dread,  came  upon  me  that  all  w'as  not  well  with  the 
picture.  And  then  the  withering  truth  broke  in  upon  me, 
the  scales  fell  from  my  eyes — the  model's  face  was  beautiful, 
but  it  was  not  right ;  the  expression  I  wanted  was  as  far  off 
as  ever;  there  was  but  one  right  expression  in  the  w^orld, 
and  that  I  could  not  find.  Ah !  is  there  any  pain  like  that  of 
discovering  that  all  the  toil  of  years  lias  been  in  vain,  that 
the  best  you  can  do — the  best  that  the  spiritual  world  per- 
mits you  to  do — is  as  far  off  the  goal  as  when  you  began  ?" 

"And  so  you  failed  after  all,  Air.  Wilderspin?"  I  said, 
anxious  to  get  him  away  so  that  I  might  talk  to  Cyril  alone 
upon  the  one  subject  at  my  heart. 

"I  told  the  model  I  should  want  her  no  more,"  said 
Wilderspin,  "and  for  two  days  and  nights  I  sat  in  the  studio 
in  a  dream,  and  could  get  nothing  to  pass  my  lips  but  bread 
and  w^ater.  Then  it  was  that  Mary  Wilderspin,  my  mother, 
remembered  me,  blessed  me — sent  me  a  spiritual  body " 

"For  God's  sake !"  I  whispered  to  Cyril,  "take  the  good 
madman  aw^ay ;  you  don't  know  how  his  prattle  harrows  me 
just  now." 

"Ah !  never,"  said  Wilderspin,  "shall  I  forget  that  sunny 
morning  when  was  first  revealed  to  me " 

"My  dear  fellow,"  said  Cyril,  "to  tell  the  adventures  of 
that  sunny  morning  would,  as  I  know  from  experience,  l^eep 
us  here  for  the  next  three  hours.    So,  as  I  must  not  miss  my 


The  Palace  of  Nin-ki-gal  257 

train,  and  as  you  cannot  spare  a  second  from  'Ruth  and 
Boaz,'  come  along." 

While  I  was  accompanying  them  through  the  corridors  of 
the  hotel,  Cyril  said :  "You  say  he  is  not  in  love  with  his 
model?  Don't  you  see  the  sulky  looks  he  gives  me?  I 
v/as  the  innocent  cause  of  an  unlucky  catastrophe  with  her. 
I'll  tell  you  about  that,  however,  another  time.  Good-bye; 
I'm  off  to  Paris." 

"When  you  return  to  London,"  I  said  to  Cyril,  "I  wish  to 
consult  you  upon  a  matter  that  concerns  me  deeply." 


11. 

On  re-entering  my  room,  as  I  stood  and  gazed  at  my  fath- 
er's book,  The  Veiled  Queen,  I  understood  something  about 
that  fascination  which  the  bird  feels  who  goes  fluttering 
to  the  serpent's  jaws  from  sheer  repulsion.  "Am  I  indeed," 
I  asked  myself,  "that  same  Darwinian  student  who  in  Swit- 
zerland not  long  since  turned  over  in  scorn  these  pages, 
where  are  enshrined  superstitious  stories  as  gross  as  any  of 
those  told  in  Fenella  Stanley's  ignorant  letters?" 

In  a  chapter  on  "Love  and  Death"  certain  passages 
showed  me  liow  great  must  have  been  the  influence  of  this 
book  on  Wilderspin,  and  I  no  longer  wondered  at  what 
the  painter  had  told  me  in  Wales.  I  will  give  one  passage 
here,  because  it  had  a  strange  effect  on  my  imagination,  as 
will  be  soon  seen  : 

"There  is  an  old  Egyptian  tablet  of  Nin-ki-gal,  the  Queen  of 
Death,  whose  abode  the  tablet  thus  describes: — 

'To  the  house  men  enter,  but  cannot  depart  from; 
To  the  road  men  go,  but  cannot  return; 
Tlie  abode  of  darkness  and  famine, 
Where  earth  is  their  food — their  nourishment  cla3\ 
Light  is  not  seen;  in  darkness  they  dwell: 
Ghosts,  like  birds,  flutter  their  wings  there; 
On  the  gate  and  the  gate-posts  the  dust  lies  undisturbed.' 

Another  part  of  the  inscription  describes  Nin-ki-gal  on  her  throne 
scattering  over  tlie  earth  the  "Seeds  of  Life  and  Death,*  and  chant- 
ing her  responses  to  the  Sibyl,  and  to  the  prayers  of  the  shapes 
kneeling  around  her,  the  dead  gods  and  the  souls  of  all  the  sons  of 
men.     And  I  often  wonder  whether  my  ancestress,  Fenella  Stanley, 


258  Aylwin 


had  any  traditional  knowledge  of  the  Queen  of  Death  when  she 
had  her  portrait  painted  as  the  Sibyl.  But  whether  she  had  or  not. 
I  never  think  of  this  Egyptian  Sib}d  kneeling  before  Nin-ki-gal, 
surrounded  by  gods  and  men,  without  seeing  in  the  Sibyl's  face 
the  grand  features  of  Fenella  Stanley. 

The  Sibyl. 

What  answer,  O  Nin-ki-gal? 
What  answer,  O  Nin-ki-gal? 
Have  pity,  O  Queen  of  Queens! 

Nin-ki-gal. 

Life's  fountain  flows, 
And  still  the  drink  is  Death's; 

Life's  garden  blows, 
And  still  'tis  Ashtoreth's;* 

But  all  is  Nin-ki-gal's. 
I  lent  the  drink  of  Day 

To  man  and  beast; 
I  lent  the  drink  of  Day 

To  gods  for  feast; 
I  poured  the  rivers  of  Night 

On  gods  surceased: 
Their  blood  was  Nin-ki-gal's. 

The  Sibyl. 

What  sowest  thou,  Nin-ki-gal? 
What  growest  thou,  Nin-ki-gal? 
Have  pity,  O  Queen  of  Queens! 

Nin-ki-gal. 

Life-seeds  I  sow — 
To  reap  the  numbered  breaths; 

Fair  flowers  I  grow — 
And  hers,  red  Ashtoreth's; 

Yea,  all  are  Nin-ki-gal's! 

The  Sibyl. 

What  knowest  thou,  Nin-ki-gal? 
What  showest  thou,  Nin-ki-gal? 
Have  pity,  O  Queen  of  Queens! 

Nin-ki-gal. 

Nor  king  nor  slave  I  know. 
Nor  tribes,  nor  shibboleths; 

But  Life-in-Death  I  know — 
^'ea,  Nin-ki-gal  I  know — 

Life's  Queen  and  Death's." 

*Hathor. 


The  Palace  of  Nin-ki-gal  259 


And  what  was  the  effect  upon  me  of  these  communings 
with  the  ancestors  whose  superstitions  I  have,  perhaps,  been 
throughout  this  narrative  treating  in  a  spirit  that  hardly  be- 
comes their  descendant? 

The  best  and  briefest  way  of  answering  this  question  is  to 
confess  not  what  I  thought,  as  I  went  on  studying  my 
father's  book,  its  strange  theories  and  revelations,  but  what 
I  did.  I  read  the  book  all  day  long:  I  read  it  all  the  next 
day.  I  cannot  say  what  days  passed.  One  night  I  resumed 
my  wanderings  in  the  streets  for  an  hour  or  tw^o,  and  then 
returned  home  and  went  to  bed, — but  not  to  sleep.  For  me 
there  was  no  more  sleep  until  those  ancestral  voices  could 
be  quelled — till  that  sound  of  Winnie's  song  in  the  street 
could  be  stopped  in  my  ears.  For  very  relief  from  them  I 
again  leapt  out  of  bed,  lit  a  candle,  unlocked  the  cabinet, 
and  taking  out  the  amulet,  proceeded  to  examine  the  facets 
as  I  did  once  before  when  I  heard  in  the  Swiss  cottage  these 
words  of  my  stricken  father : — 

''Should  j'ou  ever  come  to  love  as  I  have  loved,  you  will  find  that 
materialism  is  intolerable — is  hell  itself — to  the  heart  that  has 
known  a  passion  like  mine.  You  will  find  that  it  is  madness,  Hal, 
madness,  to  believe  in  the  word  'never!'  You  will  find  that  you 
dare  not  leave  untried  any  creed,  howsoever  wild,  that  offers  the 
heart  a  ray  of  hope." 

And  then  while  the  candle  burnt  out  dead  in  the  socket  I 
sat  in  a  waking  dream. 

III. 

The  bright  light  of  morning  was  pouring  through  the  win- 
dow. I  gave  a  start  of  horror,  and  cried,  ''Whose  face?" 
Opposite  to  me  there  seemed  to  be  sitting  on  a  bed  the 
figure  of  a  man  with  a  fiery  cross  upon  his  breast.  That 
strange  wild  light  upon  the  face,  as  if  the  pains  at  the  heart 
were  flickering  up  through  the  flesh — where  had  I  seen  it? 
For  a  moment  when,  in  Switzerland,  my  father  bared  his 
bosom  to  me,  that  ancestral  flame  had  flashed  up  into  his 
dull  lineaments.  But  upon  the  picture  of  "The  Sibyl"  in 
tlie  portrait-gallery  that  illumination  was  perpetual ! 

"It  is  merely  my  own  reflex  in  a  looking-glass,"  I  ex- 
claimed. 

Without  knowing  it  I  had  slung  the  cross  round  my  neck. 


26o  Ay  1  win 

And  then  Sinfi  Lovell's  voice  seemed  murmuring  in  my 
ears,  "Fenella  Stanley's  dead  and  dust,  and  that's  why  she 
can  make  you  put  that  cross  in  your  feyther's  tomb,  and  she 
will,  she  will." 

I  turned  the  cross  round :  the  front  of  it  was  now  next  to 
my  skin.  Sharp  as  needles  were  those  diamond  and  ruby 
points  as  I  sat  and  gazed  in  the  glass.  Slowly  a  sensation 
arose  on  my  breast,  of  pain  that  was  a  pleasure  wild  and 
new.  /  zvas  feeling  the  facets.  But  the  tears  trickling  down, 
salt,  through  my  moustache  were  tears  of  laughter;  for 
Sinfi  Lovell  seemed  again  murmuring,  "For  good  or  for  ill, 
you  must  dig  deep  to  bury  your  daddy." 

What  thoughts  and  what  sensations  were  mine  as  I  sat 
there,  pressing  the  sharp  stones  into  my  breast,  thinking  of 
her  to  whom  the  sacred  symbol  had  come,  not  as  a  blessing, 
but  as  a  curse — what  agonies  were  mine  as  I  sat  there  sob- 
bing the  one  word  "Winnie," — could  be  understood  by 
myself  alone,  the  latest  blossom  of  the  passionate  blood  that 
for  generations  had  brought  bliss  and  bale  to  the  Aylwins. 

I  cannot  tell  what  I  felt  and  thought,  but  only  what  I  did. 
And  while  I  did  it  my  reason  was  all  the  time  scoffing  at  my 
heart  (for  whose  imperious  behoof  the  wild,  mad  things  I 
am  about  to  record  were  done) — scoffing,  as  an  Asiatic 
malefactor  will  sometimes  scoff  at  the  executioner  whose 
pitiless  and  conquering  saw  is  severing  his  bleeding  body  in 
twain.  I  arose  and  murmured  ironically  to  Fenella  Stanley 
as  I  wrapped  the  cross  in  a  handkerchief  and  placed  it  in  a 
hand-valise :  "Secrecy  is  the  first  thing  for  us  sacrilegists  to 
consider,  dear  Sibyl,  in  placing  a  valuable  jewel  in  a  tomb 
in  a  deserted  church.  To  take  any  one  into  our  confidence 
would  be  impossible ;  we  must  go  alone.  But  to  open  the 
tomb  and  close  it  again,  and  leave  no  trace  of  what  has  been 
done,  will  require  all  our  skill.  And  as  burglars'  jemmies 
are  not  on  open  sale  we  must  buy,  on  our  way  to  the  rail- 
way-station, screwdrivers,  chisels,  a  hammer,  and  a  lantern ; 
for  who  should  know  better  than  you,  dear  Sibyl,  that  the 
palace  of  Nin-ki-gal  is  dark?" 


The  Palace  of  Nin-ki-gal  261 


IV. 

As  I  hurried  towards  the  Great  Eastern  Railway  station,  I 
felt  like  a  horse  drawn  by  a  Gypsy  whisperer  to  do  some- 
thing against  his  own  will,  and  yet  in  the  street  I  stopped  to 
buy  the  tools.  Reaching  Dullingham  in  the  afternoon,  I 
lunched  there;  and  as  I  walked  thence  along  the  clifif, 
towards  Raxton,  I  became  more  calm  and  collected.  I  de- 
termined not  to  go  near  the  Hall,  lest  my  movements  should 
be  watched  by  the  servants.  The  old  churchyard  was  full 
of  workmen  of  the  navvy  kind,  and  I  learned  that  for  the 
safety  of  the  public  it  had  now  become  necessary  to  hurl 
down  upon  the  sands  some  enormous  masses  of  the  cliff 
newly  disintegrated  by  the  land-springs.  I  descended  the 
gangway  at  Flinty  Point,  and  concealing  my  implements 
behind  a  boulder  in  the  cliff,  ascended  Needle  Point,  and 
went  into  the  town. 

I  had  previously  become  aw^are,  from  conversations  with 
my  mother,  that  Wynne  had  been  succeeded  as  custodian 
of  the  old  church  by  Shales,  the  hump-backed  tailor,  and  I 
apprehended  no  difficulty  in  getting  the  keys  of  the  church 
and  crypt  from  my  simple-minded  acquaintance,  without 
arousing  his  suspicions  as  to  my  mission. 

Therefore  I  went  at  once  to  the  tailor's  shop,  but  found 
that  Shales  was  out,  attending  an  annual  Odd-Fellows' 
carousal  at  Graylingham.  Consequently  I  was  obliged  to 
open  my  business  to  his  mother,  a  far  shrewder  person,  and 
one  who  might  be  much  more  difficult  to  deal  with.  How- 
ever, the  fact  of  the  navvies  being  at  work  so  close  to  a 
church  whose  chancel  belonged  to  my  family  afforded  an 
excellent  motive  for  my  visit.  But  before  I  could  introduce 
the  subject  to  Mrs.  Shales,  I  had  to  listen  to  an  exhaustive 
chronicle  of  Raxton  and  Graylingham  doings  since  I  had 
left.  Hence  by  the  time  I  quitted  her  (with  a  promise  to 
return  the  keys  in  the  m.orning)  the  sun  was  setting. 

But,  as  I  walked  along  Wilderness  Road  towards  the 
church,  a  new  and  unexpected  difficulty  presented  itself  to 
my  mind.  I  could  not,  without  running  the  risk  of  an  in- 
terruption, enter  the  church  till  after  tlie  Odd-Fellows  had 
all  returned  from  Gravlingham.  as  Shales  and  his  com- 


262  Aylwin 

panions  would  have  to  pass  along  Wilderness  Road,  which 
skirts  the  churchyard.  Shales  himself  was  as  short-sighted 
as  a  bat;  but  his  companions  had  the  usual  long-sight  of 
agriculturists,  and  would  descry  the  slightest  movement  in 
the  churchyard,  or  any  glimmer  of  light  at  the  church 
windows. 

I  would  have  postponed  my  enterprise  till  the  morrow; 
but  another  important  appointment  at  the  office  of  our 
solicitor  with  my  mother  precluded  the  possibility  of  this. 
So  my  visit  to  the  catacomb  must  perforce  be  late  at  night. 

Accordingly,  I  descended  the  cliff  and  waited  to  hear  the 
return  of  the  carousers.  There  I  sat  down  upon  the  well- 
remembered  boulder,  lost  in  recollections  of  all  that  had 
passed  on  those  sands,  while  over  the  sea  the  night  spread 
like  the  widening,  darkening  wings  of  an  enormous  spectral 
bird,  whose  brooding  voice  was  the  drone  of  the  waves  as 
they  came  nearer  and  nearer.  Then  I  began  to  think  of  what 
lay  before  me,  of  the  strangeness  and  wildness  of  my  life. 

Then  I  recalled,  with  a  shudder  I  could  not  repress,  those 
sepulchral  chambers  beneath  the  church,  which,  owing,  I 
believe,  to  the  directions  of  an  ancestor's  will,  had  been  the 
means  of  saving  it  from  demolition  after  a  large  portion  of 
the  church  had  been  condemned  as  dangerous.  Raxton 
church  is  the  only  one  along  the  coast  that  can  boast  a 
crypt ;  all  the  churches  are  Perpendicular  in  style,  too  late 
for  crypts ;  a  fact  which  is  supposed  to  indicate  that  Raxton 
was,  in  very  early  times,  a  sea-side  town  of  great  impor- 
tance ;  for  the  crypt  is  much  older  than  the  church,  and  of 
an  entirely  different  kind  of  architecture.  It  was  once  a 
depository  for  the  bones  of  Danish  warriors  killed  before 
the  Norman  Conquest ;  it  extends,  not  only  beneath  the 
chancel,  as  in  most  cases,  but  beneath  both  the  transepts. 
The  vaulting  (supported  partly  on  low  columns  of  remark- 
able beauty  and  partly  on  the  basement  wall  of  the  church) 
is  therefore  of  unusual  extent.  The  external  door  in  the 
churchyard  is  now  hidden  by  drifted  sand  and  mould.  Many 
years  ago,  to  give  place  to  the  tombs  and  coffins  of  my 
family,  the  bones  of  the  old  Danes  were  piled  together  in 
various  corners ;  and  the  thought  of  these  bones  called  up 
the  picture  of  the  abode  of  "Nin-ki-<:;al,"  the  Oueen  of 
i:)eatli : 

"Ghosts,  like  birds.  Ilutler  tiicir  wings  there; 
On  the  gate  and  the  gate-posts  the  dust  lies  undisturbed." 


The  Palace  of  Nin-ki-gal  263 

Then  my  mind  began  to  make  pictures  for  itself  of  my 
father  lying  in  his  coffin.  I  have,  I  think,  already  said  that 
his  body  had  been  embalmed,  in  order  to  allow  of  its  being 
conveyed  from  Switzerland  to  England.  Therefore  I  had 
no  dread  of  being  confronted  by  that  attribute  of  Death, 
alluded  to  by  D'Arcy,  which  is  the  most  cruel  and  terrible 
of  all — corruption.  But  then  what  change  should  I  find  in 
the  expression  of  those  features  which  on  the  day  of  the  in- 
terment had  looked  so  calm?  A  thrill  ran  through  my 
frame  as  I  pictured  myself  raising  the  coffin-lid,  and  finding 
expressed  upon  the  face,  in  language  more  appalling  than 
any  malediction  in  articulate  speech — the  curse ! 

At  about  ten  o'clock  I  mounted  the  gangway  and  waited 
behind  a  deserted  bungalow  built  for  Fenella  Stanley  till  I 
should  hear  the  Odd-Fellows  returning.  In  a  few  minutes 
I  heard  them  approaching.  They  were  singing  snatches  of 
songs  they  had  been  entertained  with  at  Graylingham,  and 
chatting  and  laughing  as  they  went  down  Wilderness  Road 
towards  Raxton.  As  they  passed  the  bungalow  and  ad- 
joining mill  there  was  a  silence. 

I  heard  one  man  say :  "  'Ez  Tom  Wynne's  ghooast  bin 
seen  here  o'  late?" 

"Nooa,  but  the  Squoire's  'ez,"  said  another. 

"/  say  they've  both  on  'em  bin  seed,"  exclaimed  a  third 
voice,  which  I  recognized  to  be  that  of  old  Lantofif  of  the 
"Fishing  Smack" — "leastways,  if  they  ain't  bin  seed  they've 
bin  'eeared.  One  Saturday  arternoon  old  Sal  Gunn  wur  in 
the  church  a-cleanin'  the  Hall  brasses,  an'  jist  afore  sun- 
down, as  she  wur  a-comin'  away,  she  'eeared  a  awful  scrim- 
mage an'  squealin'  in  the  crypt,  and  she  'eeared  the  v'ice 
o'  the  Squoire  a-callin'  out,  and  she  'eeared  Tom  Wynne's 
v'ice  a-cussin'  and  a-swearin'  at  'im.  And  more  nor  that, 
Sal  told  me  that  on  the  night  when  the  Squoire  wur  buried, 
she  seed  Tom  a-draggin'  the  Squoire's  body  along  the 
churchyard  to  the  cliff;  only  she  never  spoke  on  it  at  the 
time.  And  Sal  says  she  larnt  in  a  dream  that  the  moment 
as  Tom  went  and  laid  'is  'and  on  that  'ere  dimind  cross  in 
the  coffin,  up  springs  the  Squoire  and  claps  'old  o'  Tom's 
throat,  and  Tom  takes  'old  on  him,  and  drags  him  out  o' 
tlie  church,  nieanin'  to  chuck  him  over  the  cliffs,  when  God 
11'  mighty,  as  wur  a-keepiu'  'is  eye  on  Tom  all  the  time, 
lie  jist  lets  go  o'  the  cliffs  and  down  they  falls,  and  kills 
Tom,  and  buries  him  an'  Squoire  tew." 


264  Aylwin 

"Did  you  say  Sal  seed  all  that  in  a  dream?  or  did  she  see 
it  in  old  ale,  Muster  Lantoff?"  said  Shales. 

"Well,"  replied  Lantoff,  as  the  party  turned  past  the 
bungalow,  "p'raps  it  wur  ole  ale  as  made  me  see  in  this  very 
bungaler  when  I  wur  a  bor  the  ghooast  o'  the  great  Gypsy 
lady  whose  pictur  hangs  up  at  the  Hall,  her  as  they  used  to 
call  the  old  Squoire's  Witch-wife." 

Soon  the  singing  and  laughing  w'^re  renewed ;  and  I  stood 
and  listened  to  the  sounds  till  they  died  away  in  the  distance. 
Then  I  unlocked  the  church-door  and  entered. 


V. 

As  I  walked  down  an  aisle,  the  echoes  of  my  footsteps 
seemed  almost  loud  enough  to  be  heard  on  the  Wilderness 
Road.  No  one  could  have  a  more  contemptuous  disbelief 
in  ghosts  than  I,  and  yet  the  man's  words  about  the  ghost 
of  Fenella  Stanley  haunted  me.  When  I  reached  the  heavy 
nailed  door  leading  down  to  the  crypt,  I  lit  the  lantern.  The 
rusty  key  turned  so  stiffly  in  the  lock,  that,  to  relieve  my 
hands  (which  were  burdened  with  the  implements  I  had 
brought),  I  slung  the  hair-chain  of  the  cross  around  my 
neck,  intending  merely  to  raise  the  cofffn-lid  sufffciently 
high  to  admit  of  my  slipping  the  amulet  in. 

Having,  with  much  difficulty,  opened  the  door,  I  entered 
the  crypt.  The  atmosphere,  though  not  noisome,  was 
heavy,  and  charged  with  an  influence  that  worked  an  ex- 
traordinary effect  upon  my  brain  and  nerves.  It  was  as 
though  my  personality  were  becoming  dissipated,  until  at 
last  it  was  partly  the  reflex  of  ancestral  experiences. 
Scarcely  had  this  m.ood  passed  before  a  sensation  came 
upon  me  of  being  fanned  as  if  by  clammy  bat-like  wings ; 
and  then  the  idea  seized  me  that  the  crypt  scintillated  with 
the  eyes  of  a  malignant  foe.  It  was  as  if  the  curse  which, 
until  I  heard  Winnie  a  beggar  singing  in  the  street,  had 
been  to  me  but  a  collocation  of  maledictory  words,  harm- 
less save  in  their  effect  upon  her  superstitious  mind,  had 
here  assumed  an  actual  corporeal  shape.  In  the  uncertain 
light  shed  by  the  lantern,  I  seemed  to  see  the  face  of  this 
embodied  curse  with  an  ever-changing  mockery  of  expres- 


The   Palace  of  Nin-ki-gal  265 

sion ;  at  one  moment  wearing  the  features  of  my  father ; 
at  another  those  of  Tom  Wynne;  at  another  the  leer  of 
the  old  woman  I  had  seen  in  Cyril's  studio. 

"It  is  an  illusion,"  I  said,  as  I  closed  my  eyes  to  shut  it 
out;  "it  is  an  illusion,  born  of  opiate  fumes  or  else  of  an 
overtaxed  brain  and  an  exhausted  stomach."  Yet  it  dis- 
turbed me  as  much  as  if  my  reason  had  accepted  it  as  real. 
Against  this  foe  I  seemed  to  be  fighting  towards  my  father's 
coffin  as  a  dreamer  lights  against  a  nightmare,  and  at  last  I 
fell  over  one  of  the  heaps  of  old  Danish  bones  in  a  corner  of 
the  crypt.  The  candle  fell  from  my  lantern,  and  I  was  in 
darkness.  As  I  sat  there  I  passed  into  a  semi-conscious 
state.  I  saw  sitting  at  the  apex  of  a  towering  pyramid,  built 
of  phosphorescent  human  bones  that  reached  far,  far  above 
the  stars,  the  "Queen  of  Death,  Nin-ki-gal,"  scattering 
seeds  over  the  earth  below.  At  the  pryramid's  base  knelt 
the  suppliant  figure  of  a  Sibyl  pleading  with  the  Queen  of 
Death : 

"What   answer,   O    Nin-ki-gal? 
Have  pity,  O  Queen  of  Queens!" 

And  the  Sibyl's  face  was  that  of  Fenella  Stanley — her  voice 
was  that  of  Sinfi  Lovell. 

And  then  from  that  dizzy  height  seemed  to  come  a  cack- 
ling laugh: — 

"You  makes  me  blush,  an'  blow  me  if  blushin'  ain't  bin 
an'  made  t'other  eye  dry.  I  lives  in  Primrose  Court,  Great 
Queen  Street,  an'  my  reg'lar  perfession  is  a-sellin'  coffee  'so 
airly  in  the  morning','  and  I've  got  a  darter  as  ain't  quite 
so  'ansom  as  me,  bein'  the  moral  of  her  father." 

And  now  in  my  vision  I  perceived  that  Nin-ki-gal's  face 
was  that  of  the  old  woman  I  had  seen  in  Cyril's  studio,  and 
that  she  was  dressed  in  the  same  fantastic  costume  in  which 
Cyril  had  bedizened  her. 


VI. 

I  SPRANG  Up,  struck  a  light  and  relit  the  capdle,  and  soon 
reached  the  coffin  resting  on  a  stone  table.  I  found,  on 
examining  it,  that  although  it  had  been  screwed  down 
after  the  discovery  of  the  violation,  the  work  had  been  so 


266  Aylwin 

loosely  done  that  a  few  turns  of  the  screwdriver  were  suffi- 
cient to  set  the  lid  free.  Then  I  paused ;  for  to  raise  the 
loosened  lid  (knowing  as  I  did  that  it  was  only  the  blood's 
inherited  follies  that  had  conquered  my  rationalism  and 
induced  me  to  disturb  the  tomb)  seemed  to  require  the 
strength  of  a  giant.  Aloreover,  the  fantastic  terror  of  old 
LantofT's  story,  which  at  another  time  would  have  made  me 
smile,  also  took  bodily  shape,  and  the  picture  of  a  dreadful 
struggle  at  the  edge  of  the  clifif  between  Winnie's  father 
and  mine  seemed  to  hang  in  the  air — a  fascinating  mirage 
of  ghastly  horror. 

At  last,  by  an  immense  effort  of  will,  I  closed  my  eyes 
and  pushed  the  lid  violently  on  one  side. 

Ji;  ;;;  *  H=  *  * 

The  "sweet  odours  and  divers  kinds  of  spices"  of  the  Jew- 
ish embalmer  rose  like  a  gust  of  incense — rose  and  spread 
through  the  crypt  like  the  sweet  breath  of  a  new-born  bless- 
ing, till  the  air  of  the  charnel-house  seemed  laden  with  a 
mingled  odour  of  indescribable  sweetness.  Never  had  any 
odour  so  delighted  my  senses ;  never  had  any  sensuous  in- 
fluence so  soothed  my  soul. 

While  I  stood  inhaling  the  scents  of  opobalsam,  and 
cinnamon  and  myrrh,  and  wine  of  palm  and  oil  of  cedar, 
and  all  the  other  spices  of  the  Pharaohs,  mingled  in  one 
strange  aromatic  cloud,  my  personality  seemed  again  to 
become,  in  part,  the  reflex  of  ancestral  experiences. 

I  opened  my  eyes.  I  looked  into  the  coffin.  The  face 
(which  had  been  left  by  the  embalmer  exposed)  confronted 
mine.  "Fenella  Stanley !"  I  cried,  for  the  great  transfigurer 
Death  had  written  upon  my  father's  brow  that  self-same 
message  which  the  passions  of  a  thousand  Romany  ances- 
tors had  set  upon  the  face  of  her  whose  portrait  hung  in 
the  picture-gallery.  And  the  rubies  and  diamonds  and 
beryls  of  the  cross  as  it  now  hung  upon  my  breast,  catch- 
ing the  light  of  the  opened  lantern  in  my  left  hand,  shed 
over  the  features  an  indescribable  reflex  hue  of  quivering 
rose. 

Beneath  his  head  I  placed  the  silver  casket;  I  hung  the 
hair-chain  round  his  neck ;  I  laid  upon  his  breast  the  long- 
loved  memento  of  his  love  and  the  parchment  scroll. 

Then  I  sank  down  by  the  coffin,  and  prayed.   I  knew  not 


The  Palace  of  Nin-ki-gal  267 

what  or  why.  But  never  since  the  first  human  prayer  was 
breathed  did  there  rise  to  heaven  a  suppHcation  so  in- 
coherent and  so  wild  as  mine.  Then  I  rose,  and  laying  my 
hand  upon  my  father's  cold  brow,  I  said :  "You  have  for- 
given me  for  all  the  wild  words  that  I  uttered  in  my  long 
agony.  They  were  but  the  voice  of  intolerable  misery  re- 
belling against  itself.  You,  who  suffered  so  much — who 
knew  so  well  those  flames  burning  at  the  heart's  core — 
those  flames  before  which  all  the  forces  of  the  man  go  down 
like  prairie-grass  before  the  fire  and  wind — you  have  for- 
given me.  You  who  knew  the  meaning  of  the  wild  word 
Love — you  have  forgiven  your  suffering  son,  stricken  like 
yourself.  You  have  forgiven  me,  father,  and  forgiven  him, 
the  despoiler  of  your  tomb :  you  have  removed  the  curse, 
and  his  child — his  innocent  child — is  free." 

****** 

I  replaced  the  coffin-lid,  and  screwing  it  down  left  the 
crypt,  so  buoyant  and  exhilarated  that  I  stopped  in  the 
churchyard  and  asked  myself:  "Do  I,  then,  really  believe 
that  she  w-as  under  a  curse?  Do  I  really  believe  that  my 
restoring  the  amulet  has  removed  it?  Have  I  really  come 
to  this?" 

Throughout  all  these  proceedings — yes,  even  amidst  that 
prayer  to  Heaven,  amidst  that  impassioned  appeal  to  my 
dead  father — had  my  reason  been  keeping  up  that  scoffing 
at  my  heart  which  I  have  before  described. 

I  knocked  up  the  landlord  of  the  "White  Hart,"  and, 
turning  into  bed,  slept  my  first  peaceful  sleep  since  my 
trouble. 

To  escape  awkward  questions,  I  did  not  in  the  morning 
take  back  the  keys  to  Shales's  house  myself,  but  sent  them, 
and  walking  to  Dullingham  took  the  train  to  London. 


X. 


Behind  the  Veil 


X.— BEHIND   THE  VEIL 


I. 

When  I  met  my  mother  at  the  sohcitor's  office  next  day, 
she  was  astonished  at  my  cheerfulness  and  at  the  general 
change  in  me.     As  we  left  the  office  together,  she  said ; 

"Everything  is  now  arranged:  your  aunt  and  I  have  de- 
cided to  accept  Lord  Sleaford's  invitation  to  go  for  a  cruise 
in  his  yacht.  We  leave  to-morrow  evening.  Lord  Sleaford 
has  promised  to  take  me  to-morrow  afternoon  to  Mr.  Wil- 
derspin's  studio,  to  see  the  great  painter's  portrait  of  me, 
which  is  now,  I  understand,  quite  finished." 

"Why  did  you  not  ask  me  to  accompany  you,  instead  of 
asking  Sleaford?" 

"I  did  not  know  that  you  would  care  to  do  so." 

"Dear  mother,"  I  said,  in  a  tender  tone  that  startled  her, 
"you  must  let  me  go  with  you  and  Sleaford  to  the  studio." 

She  consented,  and  on  the  following  afternoon  I  called  at 
my  aunt's  house  in  Belgrave  Square.  The  hall  was  full  of 
portmanteaux,  boxes,  and  packages.  Sleaford  had  already 
arrived,  and  was  waiting  with  stolid  patience  for  my  mother, 
who  had  gone  to  her  room  to  dress.  He  began  to  talk  to 
me  about  the  astonishing  gifts  of  Cyril  Aylwin. 

"Have  you  made  an  appointment  with  Wilderspin?"  I 
said  to  my  mother,  when  she  entered  the  room.  "The  last 
time  I  saw  him  he  seemed  to  be  much  occupied  with  some 
disturbing  affairs  of  his  own." 

"Appointment?  No,"  said  she,  with  an  air  that  seemed 
to  imply  that  an  Aylwin,  even  with  Gypsy  blood  in  his 
veins,  in  calling  upon  Art,  was  conferring  upon  it  a  favour 
to  be  welcomed  at  any  time. 

"I  have  not  seen  this  portrait  yet,"  said  Sleaford,  as  the 
carriage  moved  ofif;  "but  Cyril  Aylwin  says  it  is  magnificent, 
and  if  anybody  knows  what's  good  and  what's  bad  it's  Cyril 
Aylwin." 


272  Aylwin 

"Do  you  know,"  said  my  mother  to  me,  "I  have  taken 
vastly  to  this  eccentric  kinsman  of  ours?  I  ihad  really  no 
idea  that  a  bohemian  could  be  so  much  like  a  gentleman; 
but,  of  course,  an  Aylwin  must  always  be  an  Aylwin." 

"Plaw,  haw!"  laughed  Sleaford  to  himself,  "that's  good 
about  Cyril  Aylwin  though — that's  dooced  good." 

"We  shall  see  Wilderspin's  great  picture,  'Faith  and 
Love,'  at  the  same  time,"  I  said,  as  we  approached  Chelsea; 
"for  Wilderspin  tells  me  that  he  has  borrowed  it  from  the 
owner  to  make  a  replica  of  it." 

"That  is  very  fortunate,"  said  my  mother.  "I  have  the 
greatest  desire  to  see  this  picture  and  its  wonderful  predella. 
Wilderspin  is  one  of  the  few  painters  who  revert  to  the 
predella  of  the  old  masters.  He  is  said  to  combine  the  colour 
of  him  whom  he  calls  'his  master'  with  the  draughtsmanship 
and  intellect  of  Shields,  whose  stained-glass  windows  the 
owner  was  showing  me  the  other  day  at  Eaton  Hall ;  and  do 
you  know,  Henry,  that  the  painter  of  this  wonderful  'Faith 
and  Love'  is  never  tired  of  declaring  that  the  subject  was 
inspired  by  your  dear  father?" 

When  we  reached  the  studio  the  servant  said  that  Mr. 
Wilderspin  was  much  indisposed  that  afternoon,  and  was 
also  just  getting  ready  to  go  to  Paris,  where  he  was  to 
join  Mr.  Cyril  in  his  studio;  "but  perhaps  he  would  see  us," 
— an  announcement  that  brought  a  severe  look  to  my 
mother's  face,  and  another  half-suppressed  "Haw,  haw!" 
from  Sleaford's  deep  chest. 

Mounting  the  broad  old  staircase,  we  found  ourselves  in 
the  studio  of  the  famous  spiritualist-painter — one  of  two 
studios;  for  Wilderspin  had  turned  two  rooms  communicat- 
ing with  each  other  by  folding-doors  into  a  sort  of  double 
studio.  One  of  these  rooms,  which  was  of  moderate  size, 
fronted  the  north-east,  the  other  faced  the  south-west.  There 
were  (as  I  soon  discovered)  easels  in  both.  It  was  the 
smaller  of  these  rooms  into  which  we  were  now  shown  by 
the  serv^ant.  The  walls  were  covered  with  sketches  and 
drawings  in  various  stages,  and  photographs  of  sculpture. 

"By  Jove,  that's  dooced  like!"  said  Sleaford,  pointing  to 
my  mother's  portrait,  which  was  standing  on  the  floor,  as 
though  just  returned  from  the  frame-maker's:  "ask  Cyril 
Aylwin  if  it  ain't  when  you  see  him." 

It  was  a  truly  magnificent  painting,  but  more  full  of 
imagination  than  of  actual  portraiture. 


Behind    the   Veil  273 

One  of  the  windows  was  open,  and  the  noise  of  an  anvil 
from  a  blacksmith's  shop  in  Maud  Street  came  into  the 
room. 

"Do  you  know,"  said  my  mother  in  an  undertone,  "that 
this  strange  genius  can  only,  when  in  London,  work  to  the 
sound  of  a  blacksmith's  anvil  ?  Nothing  will  induce  him  to 
paint  a  portrait  out  of  his  own  studio ;  and  I  observed,  when 
I  was  sitting  to  him  here,  that  sometimes  when  the  noise 
from  the  anvil  ceased  he  laid  down  his  brush  and  waited  for 
the  hideous  din  to  be  resumed." 

Wilderspin  now  came  through  the  folding  doors,  and 
greeted  us  in  his  usual  simple,  courteous  way.  But  I  saw 
that  he  was  in  trouble.  "The  portrait  will  look  better  yet," 
he  said.  "I  always  leave  the  final  glazing  till  the  picture 
is  in  the  frame." 

After  we  had  thoroughly  examined  the  portrait,  we 
turned  to  look  at  a  large  canvas  upon  an  easel.  Wilderspin 
had  evidently  been  working  upon  it  very  lately  . 

"That's  'Ruth  and  Boaz,'  don't  you  know?"  said  Sleaford. 
"Finest  crop  of  barley  I  ever  saw  in  my  life,  judgin'  from 
the  size  of  the  sheaves.  Barley  paid  better  than  wheat  last 
year.    So  the  farmers  all  say." 

"Don't  look  at  it,"  said  Wilderspin.  "I  have  been  taking 
out  part  of  Ruth,  and  was  just  beginning  to  repaint  her 
from  the  shoulders  upwards.  It  will  never  be  finished 
now,"  he  continued  with  a  sigh. 

We  asked  him  to  allow  us  to  see  "Faith  and  Love." 
"It  is  in  the  next  room,"  said  he,  "but  the  predella  is  here 
on  the  next  easel.    I  have  removed  it  from  underneath  the 
picture  to  work  upon." 

"The  head  of  Ruth  has  been  taken  out,"  said  my  mother, 
turning  to  me:  "but  isn't  it  like  an  old  master?  You  ought 
to  see  the  marvellous  Pre-Raphaelite  pictures  at  Mr. 
Graham's  and  Mr,  Leyland's,  Henry." 

"Pre-Raphaelites !"  said  Wilderspin,  "the  Master  rhymes, 
madam,  and  Burne-Jones  actually  reads  the  rhymes!  How- 
ever, they  are  on  the  right  track  in  art,  though  neither  has 
the  slightest  intercourse  with  the  spirit  world,  not  the 
slightest." 

"My  exploits  as  a  painter  have  not  been  noticeable  as 
yet,"  I  said;  "but  an  amateur  may  know  what  a  barley  field 
is.  That  is  one  before  us.  He  may  know  what  a  man  in 
love  is ;  Boaz  there  is  in  love." 


274  Aylwin 

"I  wish  we  could  see  the  woman's  face,"  said  Sleaford. 
"A  woman,  you  know,  without  a  face " 

"Come  and  see  the  predella  of  'Faith  and  Love,'  "  said 
Wilderspin,  and  he  moved  towards  an  easel  where  rested 
the  predella,  a  long  narrow  picture  without  a  frame.  My 
mother  followed  him,  leaving  me  standing  before  the  picture 
of  Ruth  and  Boaz.  Althoug'h  the  head  of  Ruth  had  been 
painted  out,  the  picture  seemed  to  throb  with  life.  Boaz 
had  just  discovered  the  Moabitish  maiden  in  the  gleaming 
barley-field,  as  she  had  risen  from  stooping  to  glean  the 
corn.  Two  ears  of  barley  were  in  one  hand.  In  the  face  of 
Boaz  was  an  expression  of  surprise,  and  his  eyes  were  alight 
with  admiration.  The  picture  was  finished  with  the  excep- 
tion of  the  face  of  Ruth,  which  was  but  newly  sketched  in. 
Wilderspin  had  contrived  to  make  her  attitude  and  even  the 
very  barley-ears  in  her  hand  (one  of  which  was  dangling 
between  her  slender  fingers  in  the  act  of  falling)  express 
innocent  perturbation  and  girlish  modesty. 


II. 

At  length  I  joined  the  others,  who  were  standing  before  the 
easel,  looking  at  the  predella  which,  as  Wilderspin  again 
took  care  to  tell  us,  had  been  removed  from  the  famous 
picture  of  'Faith  and  Love'  we  were  about  to  see  in  the  next 
room — "the  culmination  and  final  expression  of  the  Ren- 
ascence of  Wonder  in  Art." 

"Perhaps  it  is  fortunate,"  said  he,  "that  I  happen  to  be 
working  at  this  very  time  upon  the  predella,  which  acts  as 
a  key  to  the  meaning  of  the  design.  You  will  now  have  the 
advantage  of  seeing  the  predella  before  you  see  the  picture 
itself.  And  really  it  would  be  to  the  advantage  of  the  picture 
if  every  one  could  see  it  under  like  circumstances ;  it  would 
add  immensely  to  the  effect  of  the  design.  Look  well  and 
carefully  at  the  predella  first.  Try  to  imagine  the  Oriental 
Queen  behind  that  veil,  then  observe  the  way  in  which  the 
features  are  expressed  through  the  veil ;  and  then,  but  not 
till  then,  come  into  the  adjoining  room  and  see  the  picture 
itself,  see  what  Isis  really  is  (according  to  the  sublime  idea 
of  Philip  Aylwin)  when  Faith  and  Love,  the  twin  angels 
of  all  true  art,  upraise  the  veil." 


Behind    the   Veil  275 

He  then  turned  and  passed  throug'h  the  folding-doors 
into  a  room  of  great  size,  crowded  with  easels,  upon  which 
pictures  were  resting. 

The  predella  before  me  seemed  a  miracle  of  imaginative 
power.  At  that  time  I  had  not  seen  the  work  of  the  great 
poet-painter  of  modern  times  whom  Wilderspin  called  "the 
Master,"  and  by  whom  he  had  been  unconsciously  inspired. 

"Most  beautiful !"  my  mother  ejaculated,  as  we  three  lin- 
gered before  the  predella.  "Do  look  at  the  filmy  texture  of 
the  veil." 

"Looks  more  like  steam  than  a  white  veil,  don't  you 
know?"  said  Sleaford. 

"Like  steam,  my  lord?"  exclaimed  Wilderspin  from 
the  next  room.  "The  painter  of  that  veil  had  peculiar 
privileges.  As  a  child  he  had  been  in  the  habit  of  watching 
a  face  through  the  curtain  of  steam  around  a  blacksmith's 
forge  when  hot  iron  is  plunged  into  the  water-trench,  and 
the  face,  my  lord,  though  begrimed  by  earthly  toil,  was  an 
angel's.  No  wonder,  then,  that  the  painting  in  that  veil  is 
unique  in  art.  The  flesh-tints  that  are  pearly  and  yet  rosy 
seem,  as  you  observe,  to  be  breaking  through  it,  and  yet 
you  cannot  say  what  is  the  actual  expression  on  the  face. 
But  now  come  and  see  the  picture  itself." 

My  mother  and  Sleaford  lingered  for  a  moment  longer, 
and  then  passed  between  the  folding-doors. 

But  I  did  not  follow  them ;  I  could  not.  For  now  there 
was  something  in  the  predella  before  me  which  fascinated 
me,  I  scarcely  knew  why.  It  was  the  figure  of  the  Queen — 
the  figure  between  two  sleeping  angels,  behind  the  veil,  and 
expressed  by  the  veil — that  enthralled  me. 

There  was  a  turn  about  the  outlined  neck  and  head  that 
riveted  my  gaze;  and,  as  I  looked  from  these  to  the  veil 
falling  over  the  face,  a  vision  seemed  to  be  rapidly  growing 
before  my  eyes — a  vision  that  stopped  my  breath — a,  vision 
of  a  face  struggling  to  express  itself  through  that  snowy 
film — zvhose  face? 


"In  the  crypt  my  senses  had  a  kind  of  license  to  play 
me  tricks,"  I  murmured;  "but  now  and  here  my  reason  shall 
conquer." 

I  stood  and  gazed  at  the  veil.  During  all  the  time  I 
could  hear  every  word  of  the  talk  between  Wilderspin  and 


276  Aylwin 

Sleaford  and  my  mother  before  the  picture  in  the  other 
room. 

"Awfully  fine  picture,"  said  Sleaford,  "but  the  Queen 
there — Isis:  more  like  a  European  face  than  an  Egyptian. 
I've  been  to  Egypt  a  good  deal,  don't  you  know?" 

"This  is  not  an  historical  painting,  my  lord.  As  Philip 
Aylwin  says,  'the  only  soul-satisfying  function  of  art  is  to 
give  what  Zoroaster  calls  "apparent  pictures  of  unapparent 
realities."  '  Perfect  beauty  has  no  nationality ;  hers  has 
none.  All  the  perfections  of  woman  culminate  in  her.  How 
can  she  then  be  disfigured  by  paltry  characteristics  of  this 
or  that  race  or  nation  ?  In  looking  at  that  group,  my  lord, 
nationality  is  forgotten,  and  should  be  forgotten.  She  is  the 
type  of  Ideal  Beauty  whose  veil  can  never  be  raised  save  by 
the  two  angels  of  all  true  art.  Faith  and  Love.  She  is  the 
type  of  Nature,  too,  whose  secret,  as  Philip  Aylwin  says, 
'no  science  but  that  of  Faith  and  Love  can  read.'  " 

"Seems  to  be  the  type  of  a  good  deal ;  but  it's  all  right, 
don't  you  know  ?  Awfully  fine  picture !  Awfully  fine 
woman !"  said  Sleaford  in  a  conciliatory  tone.  "She's  a 
good  deal  fairer,  though,  than  any  Eastern  women  I've 
seen ;  but  then  I  suppose  she  has  worn  a  veil  all  her  life 
up  to  now.  Most  of  'em  take  sly  peeps,  and  let  in  the 
hot  Oriental  sun,  and  that  tans  'em,  don't  you  know?" 

"And  the  original  of  this  face  ?"  I  heard  my  mother  say  in 
a  voice  that  seemed  agitated ;  "could  you  tell  me  some- 
thing about  the  original  of  this  remarkable  face?" 

"The  model  ?"  said  Wilderspin.  "We  are  not  often  asked 
about  our  models,  but  a  model  like  that  would  endow 
mediocrity  itself  with  genius,  for,  though  apparently,  and 
by  way  of  beneficent  illusion,  the  daughter  of  an  earthly 
costermonger,  she  was  a  wanderer  from  another  and  a  bet- 
ter world.  She  is  not  more  beautiful  here  than  when  I  saw 
her  first  in  the  sunlight  on  that  memorable  day,  at  the 
corner  of  Essex  Street,  Strand,  bare-headed,  her  shoulders 
shining  like  patches  of  polished  ivory  here  and  there 
through  the  rents  in  her  tattered  dress,  while  she  stood  gaz- 
ing before  her,  murmuring  a  verse  of  Scripture,  perfectly 
unconscious  whether  she  was  dressed  in  rags  or  velvet; 
her  eyes " 

"The  eyes — it  is  the  eyes,  don't  you  know — it  is  the  eyes 
that  are  not  quite  right,"  said  Sleaford.  "Blue  eyes  with 
black  eyelashes  are  awfully  fine ;  you  don't  see  'em  in  Egypt. 


Behind    the   Veil  277 

But  I  suppose  that's  the  type  of  something  too.  Types 
always  floor  me,  don't  you  know?" 

"But  the  scene  is  no  longer  Egypt,  my  lord;  it  is  Cor- 
inth," replied  Wilderspin. 

During  this  dialogue  I  stood  motionless  before  the  pre- 
della;  I  could  not  stir;  my  feet  seemed  fixed  in  the  floor 
by  what  can  only  be  described  as  a  wild  passion  of  expecta- 
tion. As  I  stood  there  a  marvellous  change  appeared  to 
be  coming  over  the  veiled  figure  of  the  predella.  The  veil 
seemed  to  be  growing  more  and  more  filmy — more  and 
more  like  the  "steam"  to  which  Sleaford  had  compared  it, 
till  at  last  it  resolved  itself  into  a  veil  of  mist — into  the 
rainbow-tinted  vapours  of  a  gorgeous  mountain  sunrise, 
and  looking  straight  at  me  were  two  blue  eyes  sparkling 
with  childish  happiness  and  childish  greeting,  through 
flushed  mists  across  a  pool  on  Snowdon. 

That  she  was  found  at  last  my  heart  knew,  though  my 
brain  was  dazed.  That  in  the  next  room,  within  a  few 
yards  of  me,  my  mother  and  Sleaford  and  Wilderspin  were 
looking  at  the  picture  of  Winifred's  face  unclouded  by  the 
veil,  my  heart  knew  as  clearly  as  though  my  eyes  were 
gazing  at  it,  and  yet  I  could  not  stir.  Yes,  I  knew  that  she 
was  now  neither  a  beggar  in  the  street,  nor  a  prisoner 
in  one  of  the  dens  of  London,  nor  starving  in  a  squalid 
garret,  but  was  safe  under  the  sheltering  protection  of  a 
good  man.  I  knew  that  I  had  only  to  pass  between  those 
folding-doors  to  see  her  in  Wilderspin's  picture — see  her 
dressed  in  the  "azure-coloured  tunic  bordered  with  stars," 
and  the  upper  garment  of  the  "colour  of  the  moon  at 
moonrise,"  which  Wilderspin  had  so  vividly  described  in 
Wales,  and  yet,  paralysed  by  expectation,  I  could  not  stir. 


III. 

Soon  I  was  conscious  that  my  mother,  Sleaford,  and  Wil- 
derspin were  standing  by  my  side,  that  Wilderspin's  hand 
was  laid  on  my  arm,  and  that  I  was  pointing  at  the  predella 
— pointing  and  muttering: 

"She  lives  !    She  is  saved." 

My  mother  led  me  into  the  other  studio,  and  I  stood 


278  Aylwin 

before  the  great  picture.  Wilderspin  and  Sleaford,  feeling 
that  something  had  occurred  of  a  private  and  dehcate  na- 
ture, lingered  out  of  hearing  in  the  smaller  studio. 

"1  must  be  taken. to  her  at  once,"  I  muttered  to  my 
mother,  "at  once." 

So  living  was  the  portrait  of  Winifred  that  I  felt  that  she 
must  be  close  at  hand.  I  looked  round  to  see  if  she  herself 
were  not  standing  by  me  dressed  in  the  dazzling  draperies 
gleaming  from  Wilderspin's  superb  canvas. 

But  in  place  of  Winifred  the  profile  of  my  mother's  face, 
cold,  proud,  and  white,  met  my  gaze.  Again  did  the  stress 
of  over-mastering  emotion  make  of  me  a  child,  as  it  had 
done  on  the  night  of  the  landslip.  "Mother !"  I  said,  "you 
see  who  it  is  ?" 

She  made  no  answer :  she  stood  looking  steadfastly  at  the 
picture ;  but  the  tremor  of  the  nostrils,  the  long  deep  breaths 
she  drew,  told  me  of  the  fierce  struggle  waging  within  her 
breast  between  conscience  and  pity,  with  rage  and  cruel 
pride.  My  old  awe  of  her  returned.  I  was  a  little  boy  again, 
trembling  for  Winnie.  In  some  unaccountable  and,  I  be- 
lieve, unprecedented  way  I  had  always  felt  that  she,  my  own 
mother,  belonged  to  some  haughty  race  superior  to  mine 
and  Winnie's;  and  nothing  but  the  intensity  of  my  love 
for  Winnie  could  ever  have  caused  me  to  rebel  against 
my  mother. 

"Dear  mother,"  I  murmured,  "all  the  mischief  and  sor- 
row and  pain  are  ended  now ;  and  we  shall  all  be  happy ;  for 
you  have  a  kind  heart,  dear,  and  cannot  help  loving  poor 
Winnie,  when  you  come  to  know  her." 

She  made  no  answer  save  that  her  lips  slowly  reddened 
again  after  the  pallor;  then  came  a  quiver  in  them,  as 
though  pity  were  conquering  pride  within  her  breast,  and 
then  that  contemptuous  curl  that  had  often  in  the  past 
cowed  the  heart  of  the  fearless  and  pugnacious  boy  whom 
no  peril  of  sea  or  land  could  appal. 

"She  is  found,"  I  said.  "And,  mother,  there  is  no  longer 
an  estrangement  between  you  and  me.  I  forgive  you  every- 
thing now." 

I  leapt  from  her  as  though  I  had  been  stung,  so  sudden 
and  unexpected  was  the  look  of  scorn  that  came  over  her 
face  as  she  said,  "You  forgive  me !"  It  recalled  my  strug- 
gle with  her  on  that  dreadful  night:  and  in  a  moment  I 
became  myself  again.     The  pleading  boy  became,   at  a 


Behind    the   Veil  279 

flash,  the  stern  and  angry  man  that  misery  had  made  him. 
With  my  heart  hedged  once  more  with  points  of  steel  to  all 
the  world  but  Winnie,  I  turned  away.  I  did  not  know  then 
that  her  attitude  towards  me  at  this  moment  came  from  the 
final  struggle  in  her  breast  between  her  pride  and  that  re- 
morse which  afterwards  took  possession  of  her  and  seemed 
as  though  it  would  make  the  remainder  of  her  life  a  tragedy 
without  a  smile  in  it.  At  that  moment  Wilderspin  and 
Sleaford  came  in  from  the  smaller  studio.  "Where  is  she?" 
I  said  to  Wilderspin.  "Take  me  to  her  at  once — take  me  to 
her  who  sat  for  this  picture.  It  is  she  whom  I  and  Sinfi 
Lovell  were  seeking  in  Wales." 

A  look  of  utter  astonishment,  then  one  of  painful  per- 
plexity came  over  his  face — a  look  which  I  attributed  to  his 
having  heard  part  of  the  conversation  between  my  mother 
and  myself. 

"You  mean  the — the — model?  She  is  not  here,  Mr. 
Aylwin,"  said  he.  "The  same  young  lady  you  were  seeking 
in  Wales !  Mysterious  indeed  are  the  ways  of  the  spirit 
world!"  and  then  his  lips  moved  silently  as  though  in 
prayer. 

"Where  is  she?"  I  asked  again. 

"I  will  tell  you  all  about  her  soon — when  we  are  alone," 
he  said  in  an  undertone.    "Does  the  picture  satisfy  you?" 

The  picture !  He  was  thinking  of  his  art.  Amid  all  that 
gorgeous  pageant  in  which  mediaeval  angels  were  mixed 
with  classic  youths  and  flower-crowned  maidens,  in  such  a 
medley  of  fantastic  beauty  as  could  never  have  been  imag- 
ined save  by  a  painter  who  was  one-third  artist,  one-third 
madman,  and  one-third  seer — amid  all  the  marvels  of  that 
strange,  uncanny  culmination  of  the  neo-Romantic  move- 
ment in  Art  which  had  excited  the  admiration  of  one  set 
of  the  London  critics  and  the  scorn  of  others,  I  had  really 
and  fully  seen  but  one  face — the  face  of  Isis,  or  Pelagia, 
or  Eve,  or  Natura  Benigna,  or  whosoever  she  was  looking 
at  me  with  those  dear  eyes  of  Winnie's  which  were  my  very 
life — looking  at  me  with  the  same  bewitching,  indescrib- 
able expression  that  they  wore  when  she  sat  with  her 
"Prince  of  the  Mist"  on  Snowdon.  I  tried  to  take  in  the 
ensemble.  In  vain !  Nothing  but  the  face  and  figure  of 
Winifred— crowned  with  seaweed  as  in  the  Raxton  photo- 
graph— could  stay  for  the  thousandth  part  of  a  second  upon 
my  eyes. 


28o  Ay  1  win 

"Wilderspin,"  I  said,  "I  cannot  do  the  picture  justice  at 
this  moment.  I  must  see  it  again — after  I  have  seen  her. 
Where  is  she?    Can  I  not  see  her  now?" 

"You  cannot." 

"Can  I  not  see  her  to-day?" 

"You  cannot.  I  wih  tell  you  soon,  and  I  have  much  to 
tell  you,"  said  Wilderspin,  looking  uneasily  round  at  my 
mother,  who  did  not  seem  inclined  to  leave  us.  "I  will  tell 
you  all  about  her  when — when  you  are  sufficiently  calm." 

"Tell  me  now,"  I  said. 

"Gad !  this  is  a  strange  affair,  don't  you  know.  It  would 
puzzle  Cyril  Aylwin  himself,"  said  Sleaford,  "What  the 
dooce  does  it  all  mean?" 

"Is  she  safe?"  I  cried  to  Wilderspin. 

There  was  a  pause. 
Is  she  safe?"  I  cried  again. 

"Quite  safe,"  said  Wilderspin,  in  a  tone  whose  solemnity 
would  have  scared  me  had  the  speaker  been  any  other  per- 
son that  this  eccentric  creature.  "When  you  are  less  agi- 
tated, I  will  tell  you  all  about  her." 

"No!  now,  now!" 


IV. 

"Well,  Mr.  Aylwin,"  said  Wilderspin,  "when  I  first  saw 
your  father's  book.  The  Veiled  Queen,  it  was  the  vignette  on 
the  title-page  that  attracted  me.  *In  the  eyes  of  that  beauti- 
ful child-face,  even  as  rendered  by  a  small  reproduction, 
there  was  the  very  expression  that  my  soul  had  been  yearn- 
ing after — the  expression  which  no  painter  of  woman's 
beauty  had  ever  yet  caught  and  rendered.  I  felt  that  he 
who  could  design  or  suggest  to  a  designer  such  a  vignette 
must  be  inspired,  and  I  bought  the  book :  it  was  as  an 
artist,  not  as  a  thinker,  that  I  bought  the  book  for  the 
vignette.  When,  on  reading  it,  I  came  to  understand  the 
full  meaning  of  the  design,  such  sweet  comfort  and  hope 
did  the  writer's  words  give  me,  that  I  knew  at  once  who 
had  impressed  me  to  read  it — I  knew  that  my  mission  in 
life  was  to  give  artistic  development  to  the  sublime  ideas 
of  Philip  Aylwin.  I  began  the  subject  of  'Faith  and  Love.' 
But  the  more  I  tried  to  render  the  expression  that  had 


Behind    the    Veil  281 

fascinated  me  the  more  impossible  did  the  task  seem  to  me. 
Howsoever  imaginative  may  be  any  design,  the  painter  who 
would  produce  a  living  picture  must  paint  from  life,  and 
then  he  has  to  fight  against  his  model's  expression.  Do 
you  remember  my  telling  you  the  other  day  how  the  spirit 
of  Mary  Wilderspin  in  heaven  came  upon  me  in  my  sore 
perplexity  and  blessed  me — sent  me  a  spiritual  body — led 
me  out  into  the  street,  and " 

"Yes,  yes,  I  remember ;  but  what  happened  ?" 

"We  will  sit,"  said  Wilderspin, 

He  placed  chairs  for  us,  and  I  perceived  that  my  mother 
did  not  intend  to  go, 

"Well,"  he  continued,  "on  that  sunny  morning  I  was 
impressed  to  leave  my  studio  and  go  out  into  the  streets. 
It  was  then  that  I  found  what  I  had  been  seeking, — the 
expression  in  the  beautiful  child-face  of  the  vignette." 

"In  the  street !"  I  heard  my  mother  say  to  herself. 

"How  did  it  come  about?"  she  asked  aloud, 

"It  had  long  been  my  habit  to  roam  about  the  streets  of 
London  whenever  I  could  afford  the  time  to  do  so,  in  the 
hope  of  finding  what  I  sought,  the  fascinating  and  inde- 
scribable expression  of  that  one,  lovely  child-face.  Some- 
times I  believed  that  I  had  found  this  expression,  I  have 
followed  women  for  miles,  traced  them  home,  introduced 
myself  to  them,  told  them  of  my  longings ;  and  have  then, 
after  all,  come  away  in  bitter  disappointment.  The  insults 
and  revilings  I  have,  on  these  occasions,  sometimes  sub- 
mitted to  I  will  narrate  to  no  man.  for  they  would  bring 
me  no  respect  in  a  cynical  age  like  this — an  age  which 
Carlyle  spits  at  and  the  great  and  good  John  Ruskin  chides. 
Sometimes  my  dear  friend  Mr.  Cyril  has  accompanied  me 
on  these  occasions,  and  he  has  seen  how  I  have  been 
humiliated." 

An  involuntary  "haw,  haw!"  came  from  Sleaford,  but 
looking  towards  my  mother  and  perceiving  that  she  was 
listening  with  intense  eagerness,  he  said :  "Ten  thousand 
pardons,  but  Cyril  Aylwin's  droll  stories, — don't  you  know? 
they  will — hang  it  all — keep  comin'  up  and  makin'  a  fellow 
laugh." 

"Well,"  continued  Wilderspin,  "on  that  memorable 
morning  I  was  impressed  to  walk  down  the  street  towards 
Temple  Bar.  I  was  passing  close  to  the  wall  to  escape  the 
glare  of  the  sun,  when  I  was  stopped  suddenly  by  a  sight 


282  Aylwin 

which  I  knew  could  only  have  been  sent  to  me  in  that  hour 
of  perplexity  by  her  who  had  said  that  Jesus  would  let  her 
look  down  and  watch  her  boy.  Moreover,  at  that  moment 
the  noise  of  the  Strand  seemed  to  cease  in  my  ears,  which 
were  filled  with  the  music  I  love  best — the  only  music  that 
I  have  patience  to  listen  to — the  tinkle  of  a  blacksmith's 
anvil." 

"Blacksmith's  anvil  in  the  Strand  ?"  said  Sleaford. 

"It  was  from  heaven,  my  lord,  that  the  music  fell  like 
rain ;  it  was  a  sign  from  Mary  Wilderspin  who  lives  there." 

"For  God's  sake  be  quick  !"  I  exclaimed.  "Where  was  it?" 

"At  the  corner  of  Essex  Street.  A  bright-eyed,  bright- 
haired  girl  in  rags  was  standing  bareheaded,  holding  out 
boxes  of  matches  for  sale,  and  murmuring  words  of  Script- 
ure. This  she  was  doing  quite  mechanically,  as  it  seemed, 
and  unobservant  of  the  crowd  passing  by, — individuals  of 
whom  would  stop  for  a  moment  to  look  at  her ;  some  with 
eyes  of  pure  admiration  and  some  with  other  eyes.  The 
squalid  attire  in  which  she  was  clothed  seemed  to  add  to 
her  beauty." 

"My  poor  Winnie !"  I  murmured,  entirely  overcome. 

"She  seemed  to  take  as  little  heed  of  the  heat  and  glare  as 
of  the  people,  but  stood  there  looking  before  her,  murmur- 
ing texts  from  Scripture  as  though  she  were  communing 
with  the  spiritual  world.  Her  eyes  shook  and  glittered 
in  the  sunshine ;  they  seemed  to  emit  lights  from  behind  the 
black  lashes  surrounding  them ;  the  ruddy  lips  were  quiver- 
ing. There  was  an  innocence  about  her  brow,  and  yet  a 
mystic  wonder  in  her  eyes  which  formed  a  mingling  of  the 
childlike  with  the  maidenly  such  as " 

"Man !  man !  would  you  kill  me  with  your  description  ?" 
I  cried.  Then  grasping  Wilderspin's  hand.  I  said,  "But, — 
but  was  she  begging,  Wilderspin?  Not  literally  begging! 
My  Winnie!  my  poor  Winnie!" 

My  mother  looked  at  me.  The  gaze  was  full  of  a  painful 
interest ;  but  she  recognized  that  between  me  and  her  there 
now  was  rolling  an  infinite  sea  of  emotion,  and  her  eyes 
drooped  before  mine  as  though  she  had  suddenly  invaded 
the  privacy  of  a  stranger. 

"She  was  oflFering  matches  for  sale,"  said  Wilderspin. 

"Winnie!  Winnie!  Winnie!"  I  murmured.  "Did  she 
seem  emaciated,  Wilderspin?  Did  she  seem  as  though  she 
wanted  food  ?" 


Behind    the   Veil  283 

"Heaven,  no !"  exclaimed  my  mother. 

"No,"  replied  Wilderspin,  firmly.  "On  that  point  who  is 
a  better  judge  than  the  painter  of  'Faith  and  Love'?  She 
did  not  want  food.  The  colour  of  the  skin  was  not — was 
not — such  as  I  have  seen — when  a  woman  is  dying  for  want 
of  food." 

"God  bless  you,  Wilderspin,  God  bless  you!  But  what 
then  ? — what  followed  ?" 

"Well,  Mr.  Aylwin,  I  stood  for  some  time  gazing  at  her, 
muttering  thanks  to  my  mother  for  what  I  had  found.  I 
then  went  up  to  her,  and  asked  her  for  a  box  of  matches. 
She  held  me  out  a  box,  mechanically,  as  it  seemed,  and, 
when  I  had  taken  it  of  her,  she  held  out  her  hand  just  as 
though  she  had  been  a  real  earthly  beggar-girl ;  but  that 
was  part  of  the  beneficent  illusion  of  Heaven." 

"That  was  for  the  price,  don't  you  know?"  said  Sleaford. 
"What  did  you  give  her?" 

"I  gave  her  a  shilling,  my  lord,  which  she  looked  at  for 
some  time  in  a  state  of  bewilderment.  She  then  began  to 
feel  about  her  as  if  for  something." 

"She  was  feelin'  for  the  change,  don't  you  know?"  said 
Sleaford,  not  in  the  least  degree  perceiving  how  these  inter- 
ruptions of  a  prosaic  mind  were  maddening  me. 

"I  told  her  that  I  wanted  to  speak  to  her."  continued 
Wilderspin,  "and  asked  her  where  she  lived.  She  gave  me 
the  same  bewildered,  other-world  look  with  which  she  had 
regarded  the  shilling,  a  look  which  seemed  to  say,  'Go 
away  now :  leave  me  alone !'  As  I  did  not  go,  she  began  to 
appear  afraid  of  me,  and  moved  away  towards  Temple 
Bar,  and  then  crossed  the  street.  I  followed,  as  far  behind 
as  I  could  without  running  the  danger  of  losing  sight  of 
her,  to  a  wretched  place  running  out  of  Great  Queen  Street, 
Holborn,  which  I  afterwards  found  was  called  Primrose 
Court,  and  when  I  got  there  she  had  disappeared  in  one 
of  the  squalid  houses  opening  into  the  Court.  I  knocked 
at  the  first  door  once  or  twice  before  an  answer  came,  and 
then  a  tiny  girl  with  the  face  of  a  woman  opened  it.  'Is 
there  a  beggar-girl  Hving  here?'  I  asked.  'No,'  answered 
the  child  in  a  sharp,  querulous  voice.  'You  mean  Meg 
Gudgeon's  gal  wot  sings  and  does  the  rainy-night  dodge. 
She  lives  next  house.'  And  the  child  slammed  the  door  in 
my  face.  I  knocked  at  the  next  door,  and  after  waiting  for 
a  minute  it  was  opened  by  a  short,  middle-aged  woman, 


284  Aylwin 

with  black  eyes  and  a  flattened  nose,  who  stared  at  me, 
and  then  said,  'A  Quaker,  by  the  looks  o'  ye.'  She  had  the 
strident  voice  of  a  raven,  and  she  smelt,  I  thought,  of  gin." 

"But,  Mr.  Wilderspin,  Mr.  Wilderspin,  you  said  the  girl 
was  safe!" 

It  was  my  mother's  voice,  but  so  loud,  sharp,  and  ago- 
nised was  it  that  it  did  not  seem  to  be  her  voice  at  all.  In 
that  dreadful  moment,  however,  I  had  no  time  to  heed  it. 
At  the  description  of  the  hideous  den  and  the  odious  Mrs. 
Gudgeon,  whose  face  as  I  had  seen  it  in  Cyril's  studio  had 
haunted  me  in  the  crypt,  a  dreadful  shudder  passed  through 
my  frame ;  an  indescribable  sense  of  nausea  stirred  within 
me;  and  for  a  moment  I  felt  as  though  the  pains  of  dis- 
solution were  on  me.  And  there  was  something  in  Wilder- 
spin's  face — what  was  it? — that  added  to  my  alarm.  "Stay 
for  a  moment,"  I  said  to  him ;  "I  cannot  yet  bear  to  hear 
any  more." 

"I  know  the  dread  that  has  come  upon  you,  and  upon 
your  kind,  sympathetic  mother,"  said  he ;  "but  she  you  are 
disturbed  about  was  not  a  prisoner  in  the  kind  of  place  my 
words  seem  to  describe." 

"But  the  woman?"  said  my  mother.  "How  could  she 
be  safe  in  such  hands  ?" 

"Has  he  not  said  she  is  safe?"  I  cried,  in  a  voice  that 
startled  even  my  own  ears,  so  loud  and  angry  it  was,  and  yet 
I  hardly  knew  why. 

"You  forget,"  said  Wilderspin,  turning  to  my  mother, 
"that  the  whole  spiritual  world  was  watching  over  her." 

"But  was  the  place  very — was  it  so  very  squalid?"  said 
my  mother.  "Pray  describe  it  to  us,  Mr.  Wilderspin ;  I  am 
really  very  anxious." 

"No !"  I  said ;  "I  want  no  description :  I  shall  go  and  see 
for  myself." 

"But,  Henry,  I  am  most  anxious  to  know  about  this  poor 
girl,  and  I  want  Mr.  Wilderspin  to  tell  us  how  and  where 
he  found  her." 

"""The  'poor  girl'  concerns  me  alone,  mother.  Our  calami- 
ties— Winnie's  and  mine — are  between  us  two  and  God.  .  .  . 
You  engaged  her,  Wilderspin,  of  the  woman  whom  I  saw 
at  Cyril's  studio,  to  sit  as  a  model  ?  What  passed  when  she 
came?" 

"The  woman  brought  her  next  day,"  said  Wilderspin, 
"and  I  sketched  in  the  face  of  Pelagia  as  Isis  at  once.    I  had 


Behind    the   Veil  285 

already  taken  out  the  face  of  the  previous  model  that  had 
dissatisfied  me.  I  now  took  out  the  figure  too,  for  the 
figure  of  this  new  model  was  as  perfect  as  her  face." 

"Go  on,  go  on.    What  occurred?" 

"Nothing,  save  that  she  stood  dumb,  like  one  who  had  no 
language  save  that  of  another  world.  But  at  the  second 
sitting  she  had  a  fit  of  a  most  dreadful  kind." 

"Ah !    Tell  me  quickly,"  I  said. 

"Her  face  became  suddenly  distorted  by  an  expression  of 
terror  such  as  I  had  never  seen  and  never  imagined  possi- 
ble. I  have  caught  it  exactly  in  my  picture  'Christabel.' 
She  revived  and  tried  to  run  out  of  the  studio.  Her  mother 
and  I  seized  her,  and  she  then  fell  down  insensible." 

"What  occasioned  the  fit?    What  had  frightened  her?" 

"That  is  what  I  am  not  quite  certain  about.  When  she 
entered  the  studio  she  fixed  her  eyes  upon  a  portrait  which 
I  had  been  working  upon ;  but  that  must  have  been  merely 
a  coincidence." 

"A  portrait !"  I  cried.  And  Winifred's  scared  expression 
when  she  encountered  my  mother's  look  of  hate  in  the 
churchyard  came  back  to  me  like  a  scene  witnessed  in  a 
flash  of  lightning.    "The  portrait  was  my  mother's?" 

"It  was  the  face  of  the  kind,  tender,  and  noble  lady,  your 
mother,"  said  Wilderspin,  gently. 

I  gave  a  hurried  glance  at  my  mother,  and  saw  the  pallor 
of  her  face, — but  to  me  the  world  held  now  only  two 
realities,  Winifred  and  Wilderspin ;  all  other  people  were 
dreams,  obtrusive  and  irritating  dreams. 

"Go  on,  go  on,"  I  said. 

"She  recovered,"  continued  Wilderspin,  "and  seemed  to 
have  forgotten  all  about  the  portrait,  which  I  had  put 
away." 

"Did  she  talk?" 

"Never,  Mr.  Aylwin,"  said  Wilderspin,  solemnly.  "Nor 
did  I  invite  her  to  talk,  knowing  whence  she  came — from 
the  spirit-world.  At  the  first  few  sittings  Mrs.  Gudgeon 
came  with  her,  and  would  sit  looking  on  with  the  intention 
of  seeing  that  she  came  to  no  harm.  She  said  her  daughter 
was  very  beautiful,  and  she,  her  mother,  never  trusted  her 
with  men." 

"God  bless  the  hag,  God  bless  her ;  but  go  on !" 

"Gradually  Mrs.  Gudgeon  seemed  to  acquire  more  con- 
fidence in  me ;  and  one  day,  on  leaving,  she  lingered  behind 


2  86  Aylwin 

the  girl,  and  told  me  that  her  daughter,  though  uncom- 
monly stupid  and  a  little  touched  in  the  head,  had  now 
learnt  her  way  to  my  studio,  and  that  in  future  she  should 
let  her  come  alone,  as  she  believed  that  she  could  trust  her 
with  me.  She  warned  me  earnestly,  however,  not  to  'worrit' 
the  girl  by  asking  her  all  sorts  of  questions." 

"And  there  she  was  right,"  I  cried.  "But  you  did  ask 
her  questions, — I  see  you  did,  you  asked  her  about  her 
father,  and  brought  on  another  catastrophe." 

"No,"  said  Wilderspin  with  gentle  dignity ;  "I  was  careful 
not  to  ask  her  questions,  for  her  mother  told  me  that  she 
was  liable  to  fits." 

"Mr.  Wilderspin,  I  beg  your  pardon,"  I  said. 

"I  see  you  are  deeply  troubled,"  said  he ;  "but,  Mr.  Ayl- 
win, you  need  not  beg  my  pardon.  Since  I  saw  Mary 
Wilderspin,  my  mother,  die  for  her  children,  no  words  of 
mere  Man  have  been  able  to  give  me  pain." 

"Go  on,  go  on.    What  did  the  woman  say  to  you?" 

"She  said,  'The  fewer  questions  you  ask  her  the  better, 
and  don't  pay  her  any  money.  She'd  only  lose  it ;  I'll  come 
for  it  at  the  proper  times.'  From  that  day  the  model  came 
to  the  sittings  alone,  and  Mrs.  Gudgeon  came  at  the  end 
of  every  week  for  the  money." 

"And  did  the  model  maintain  her  silence  all  this  time?" 

"She  did.  She  would,  every  few  minutes,  sink  into  a 
reverie,  and  appear  to  be  stone-deaf.  But  sometimes  her 
face  would  become  suddenly  alive  with  all  sorts  of  shift- 
ing expressions.  A  few  days  ago  she  had  another  fit, 
exactly  like  the  former  one.  That  was  on  the  day  preceding 
my  call  at  your  hotel  with  your  father's  books.  This  time 
we  had  much  more  difficulty  in  bringing  her  round.  We 
did  so  at  last ;  and  when  she  had  gone  I  gave  the  final  touch 
to  my  picture  of  the  Lady  Geraldine  and  Christabel.  I 
was  at  the  moment,  however,  at  work  upon  'Ruth  and 
Boaz',  which  I  had  painted  years  before — removing  the 
face  of  Ruth  originally  there.  I  worked  long  at  it ;  and  as 
she  was  not  coming  for  two  days  I  kept  steadily  at  the 
picture.  This  was  on  the  day  on  which  I  called  upon  you, 
wishing  you  to  postpone  your  visit,  lest  you  should  inter- 
rupt me  while  at  work  upon  the  head  of  Ruth,  which  I  was 
hoping  to  paint.  On  Thursday  I  waited  for  her  at  the 
appointed  hour,  but  she  did  not  come,  and  I  saw  her  no 
more." 


Behind   the    Veil  287 


V. 

"Mr.  Wilderspin,"  I  said,  as  I  rose  hurriedly,  with  the  in- 
tention of  going  at  once  in  search  of  Winifred,  "let  me  see 
the  picture  you  allude  to — 'Christabel,'  and  then  tell  me 
where  to  find  her." 

"Better  not  see  it!"  said  Wilderspin,  solemnly;  "there's 
something  to  tell  you  yet,  Mr.  Aylwin." 

"Yes,  yes;  but  let  me  see  the  picture  first.  I  can  bear 
anything  now.  Howsoever  terrible  it  may  be,  I  can  bear 
it  now;  for  she's  found — she's  safe."  And  I  rushed  into 
the  next  room,  and  began  turning  round  in  a  wild  manner 
one  after  another  some  dozens  of  canvases  that  were  stand- 
ing on  the  floor  and  leaning  against  the  wall. 

Half  the  canvases  had  been  turned,  and  then  I  came  upon 
what  I  sought. 

I  stood  petrified.  But  I  heard  Wilderspin's  voice  at  my 
side  say,  "Do  not  let  an  imaginary  scene  distress  you,  Mr. 
Aylwin.  The  picture  merely  represents  the  scene  in  Cole- 
ridge's poem  where  the  Lady  Christabel,  having  secretly 
and  in  pity  brought  to  her  room  to  share  her  bed  the 
mysterious  lady  she  had  met  in  the  forest  at  midnight, 
watches  the  beautiful  witch  undress,  and  is  spell-bound  and 
struck  dumb  by  some  'sight  to  dream  of,  not  to  tell,'  which 
she  sees  at  the  lady's  bosom." 

^  :t:  >):  >K  >):  ^ 

Christabel !  It  was  Winifred  sitting  there  upright  in  bed, 
confronted  by  a  female  figure — a  tall  lady,  who  with  bowed 
head  was  undressing  herself  beneath  a  lamp  suspended 
from  the  ceiling.  Christabel!  It  was  Winifred  gazing  at 
this  figure — gazing  as  though  fascinated;  her  dark  hair 
falling  and  tumbling  down  her  neck,  till  it  was  at  last  partly 
lost  between  her  shining  bosom  and  her  nightdress.  Yes, 
and  in  her  blue  eyes  there  was  the  same  concentration  of 
light,  there  was  the  same  uprolling  of  the  lips,  there  was  the 
same  dreadful  gleaming  of  the  teeth,  the  same  swollen  veins 
about  the  throat  I  had  seen  in  Wales.  No  wonder  that 
at  first  I  could  see  only  the  face  and  figure  of  Winifred. 
My  consciousness  had  again  dwindled  to  a  single  point. 
In  a  few  seconds,  however,  I  perceived  that  the  scene  was 


288  Ay  1  win 

an  antique  oak-panelled  chamber,  corniced  with  large  and 
curiously-carved  figures,  upon  which  played  the  warm  light 
from  a  silver  lamp  suspended  from  the  middle  of  the  ceiling 
by  a  twofold  silver  chain  fastened  to  the  feet  of  an  angel, 
quaintly  carved  in  the  dark  wood  of  the  ceiling.  It  was 
beneath  this  lamp  that  stood  the  majestic  figure  of  the 
beautiful  stranger,  the  Lady  Geraldine.  As  she  bent  her 
head  to  look  at  her  bosom,  which  she  was  about  fully  to 
uncover,  the  lamp-light  gleaming  among  the  gems  and 
flashing  in  her  hair  and  down  her  loosened  white  silken 
robe  to  her  naked  feet,  shining,  blue-veined  and  half-hidden 
in  the  green  rushes  that  covered  the  floor,  she  seemed  to 
be  herself  the  source  from  which  the  lurid  light  was  shed 
about  the  room.  But  her  eyes  were  brighter  than  all. 
They  were  more  dreadful  by  far  to  look  at  than  Winifred's 
own — they  were  rolling  wildly  as  if  in  an  agony  of  hate, 
while  she  was  drawing  in  her  breath  till  that  marble  throat 
of  hers  seemed  choking.  It  was  not  upon  her  eyes,  how- 
ever, that  Winifred's  were  fixed :  it  was  upon  the  lady's 
bosom, — for  out  from  beneath  the  partially-loosened  robes 
that  covered  that  bosom  a  tiny  fork  of  flame  was  flickering 
like  a  serpent's  tongue  ruddy  from  the  fires  of  a  cruel  and 
monstrous  hate  within. 

This  sight  was  dreadful  enough ;  but  it  was  not  the  terror 
on  Winifred's  face  that  now  sent  me  reeling  against  Slea- 
ford,  who  with  my  mother  had  followed  me  into  the  smaller 
room.  Whose  figure  was  that,  and  whose  was  the  face 
which  at  first  I  had  half-recognised  in  the  Lady  Geraldine  ? 
My  mother's ! 

In  painting  this  subject  Wilderspin  had,  without  knowing 
it,  worked  with  too  strong  a  reminiscence  of  my  mother's 
portrait,  unconscious  that  he  was  but  giving  expression 
to  the  awful  irony  of  Heaven. 

I  turned  round.  Wilderspin  was  supporting  with  diffi- 
culty my  mother's  dead  weight.  For  the  first  time  (as  I 
think)  in  her  life,  she  whom,  until  I  came  to  know  Sinfi 
Lovell,  I  had  believed  to  be  the  strongest,  proudest,  bravest 
woman  living,  had  fainted. 

"Dear  me !"  said  Wilderspin,  "I  had  no  idea  that  Christa- 
bel's  terror  was  so  strongly  rendered, — no  idea !  Art  should 
never  produce  an  eflfect  like  this.  Romantic  art  knows 
nothing  of  a  mere  sensational  illusion.  Dear  me! — I  must 
soften  it  at  once." 


Behind    the   Veil  289 

He  was  evidently  quite  unconscious  that  he  had  given 
my  mother's  features  to  Geraldine,  and  attributed  the  effect 
to  his  own  superlative  strength  as  a  dramatic  artist. 

I  ran  to  her:  she  soon  recovered,  but  asked  to  be  taken 
to  Belgrave  Square  at  once.  Wild  as  I  was  with  the  desire  to 
go  in  quest  of  Winifred ;  goaded  as  I  was  by  a  new,  name- 
less, shapeless  dread  which  certain  words  of  Wilderspin's 
had  aroused,  but  which  (like  the  dread  that  had  come  to 
me  on  the  night  of  my  father's  funeral)  was  too  appalling  to 
confront,  I  was  obliged  to  leave  the  studio  and  take  my 
mother  to  the  house  of  my  aunt,  who  was,  I  knew,  waiting 
to  start  for  the  yacht. 


XI. 

The  Irony  of  Heaven 


XL— THE    IRONY    OF    HEAVEN 


I. 

As  we  stepped  into  the  carriage,  Sleaford,  full  of  sympathy, 
jumped  in.  This  fortunately  prevented  a  conversation  that 
would  have  been  intolerable  both  to  my  mother  and  to  me. 

"Studio  oppressively  close,"  said  Sleaford ;  "usual  beastly 
smell  of  turpentine  and  pigments  and  things.  Why  the 
dooce  don't  these  fellows  ventilate  their  studios  before  they 
get  ladies  to  go  to  see  their  paintin's !"  This  he  kept  re- 
peating, but  got  no  response  from  either  of  us. 

As  to  me,  let  me  honestly  confess  that  I  had  but  one 
thought :  how  much  time  would  be  required  to  go  to  Bel- 
grave  Square  and  back  to  the  studio,  to  learn  the  where- 
abouts of  Winifred.  "But  she's  safe,"  I  kept  murmuring, 
in  answer  to  that  rising  dread :  "Wilderspin  said  she  was 
safe." 

During  that  drive  to  Belgrave  Square,  he  whose  bearing 
towards  my  mother  was  that  of  the  anxious,  loving  son  was 
not  I,  the  only  living  child  of  her  womb,  but  poor,  simple, 
empty-headed  Sleaford. 

When  we  reached  Belgrave  Square  my  mother  declared 
that  she  had  entirely  recovered  from  the  fainting  fit,  but  I 
scarcely  dared  to  look  into  those  haggard  eyes  of  hers, 
which  showed  only  too  plainly  that  the  triumph  of  remorse 
in  her  bosom  was  now  complete.  My  aunt,  who  seemed 
to  guess  that  something  lowering  to  the  family  had  taken 
place,  was  impatient  to  get  on  board  the  yacht.  I  saw  how 
my  mother  now  longed  to  remain  and  learn  the  upshot  of 
events ;  but  I  told  her  that  she  was  far  better  away  now, 
and  that  I  would  write  to  her  and  keep  her  posted  up  in 
the  story  day  by  day.    I  bade  them  a  hurried  "Good-bye." 

"How  shall  I  be  able  to  stay  out  of  England  until  I  know 
all  about  her?"   said  my  mother.     "Go  back  and  learn  all 


294  Aylwin 

about  her,  Henry,  and  write  to  me ;  and  be  sure  to  get  and 
take  care  of  that  dreadful  picture,  and  write  to  me  about 
that  also." 

When  the  carriage  left  I  walked  rapidly  along  the  Square, 
looking  for  a  hansom.  In  a  second  or  two  Sleaford  was  by 
my  side.    He  took  my  arm. 

"I  suppose  you're  goin'  back  to  cane  him,  aren't  you?" 
said  he. 

"Cane  whom?"  I  said  impatiently,  for  that  intolerable 
thought  which  I  have  hinted  at  was  now  growing  within 
my  brain,  and  I  must,  must  be  alone  to  grapple  with  it. 

"Cane  the  d d  painter,  of  course,"  said  Sleaford,  open- 

inb  his  great  blue  eyes  in  wonder  that  such  a  question 
should  be  asked.  "Awfully  bad  form  that  fellow  goin'  and 
puttin'  your  mother  in  the  picture.  But  that's  just  the  way 
with  these  fellows." 

"What  do  you  mean?"  I  asked  again. 

"What  do  I  mean  ?  The  paintin'  and  writin'  fellows.  You 
can't  make  a  silk  purse  out  of  a  sow's  ear,  as  I've  often  and 
often  said  to  Cyril  Aylwin;  and  by  Jove,  I'm  right  for  once. 
I  suppose  I  needn't  ask  you  if  you're  going  back  to  cane 
him." 

"Wilderspin  did  what  he  did  quite  unconsciously,"  I  re- 
plied, as  I  hailed  a  hansom.    "It  was  the  finger  of  God." 

"The  finger  of — Oh  come !    That  be  hanged,  old  chap." 

"Good-bye,"  I  said,  as  I  jumped  into  the  hansom. 

"But  you  don't  mean  to  say  you  are  goin'  to  let  a  man 
put  your  mother  into " 

I  heard  no  more.  The  terrible  idea  which  had  been 
growing  in  my  brain,  shaping  itself  out  of  a  nebulous  mass 
of  reminiscences  of  what  had  just  occurred  at  the  studio, 
was  now  stinging  me  to  madness.  Wilderspin's  extreme 
dejection,  the  strange  way  in  which  he  had  seemed  inclined 
to  evade  answering  my  question  as  to  the  safety  of  Wini- 
fred, the  look  of  pity  on  his  face  as  at  last  he  answered 
"quite  safe" — what  did  all  these  indications  portend?  At 
every  second  the  thought  grew  and  grew,  till  my  brain 
seemed  like  a  vapour  of  fire,  and  my  eyeballs  seemed  to 
scorch  their  sockets  as  I  cried  aloud :  "Have  I  found  her  at 
last  to  lose  her?" 

On  reaching  the  studio-door  I  rapped :  before  the  servant 
had  time  to  answer  my  summons,  I  rapped  again  till  the 
sounds  echoed  along  the  street.    When  my  summons  was 


The    Irony    of  Heaven  295 

answered,  I  rushed  upstairs.  Wilderspin  stood  at  the 
studio-door,  Hstening,  apparently,  to  the  sound  of  the  black- 
smith's anvil  coming  in  from  the  back  of  Maud  Street 
through  the  open  window.  Though  his  sorrowful  face  told 
all,  I  cried  out,  ''Wilderspin,  she's  safe?  You  said  she  was 
safe?" 

''My  friend,"  said  Wilderspin  solemnly,  "the  news  I  have 
to  give  you  is  news  that  I  knew  you  would  rather  receive 
when  you  could  hear  it  alone." 

"You  said  she  was  safe!" 

"Yes,  safe  indeed!  She  whom  you,  under  some  strange 
but  no  doubt  beneficent  hallucination,  believe  to  be  the  lady 
you  lost  in  Wales,  is  safe  indeed,  for  she  is  in  the  spirit-land 
with  her  whose  blessing  lent  her  to  me — she  has  returned 
to  her  who  was  once  a  female  blacksmith  at  Oldhill,  and  is 
now  the  brightest,  sweetest,  purest  saint  in  Paradise." 

Dead !  My  soul  had  been  waiting  for  the  word — expect- 
ing it  ever  since  I  left  the  studio  with  my  mother — but  now 
it  sounded  more  dreadful  than  if  it  had  come  as  a  surprise. 

"Tell  me  all,"  I  cried,  "at  once — at  once.  She  did  not 
return,  you  say,  on  the  day  following  the  catastrophe — when 
did  she  return? — when  did  you  next  see  her?" 

"I  never  saw  her  again  alive,"  answered  Wilderspin 
mournfully;  "but  you  are  so  pale,  Mr.  Aylwin,  and  your 
eyes  are  so  wild,  I  had  better  defer  telling  you  what  little 
more  there  is  to  tell  until  you  have  quite  recovered  from  the 
shock." 

"No;  now,  now." 

Wilderspin  looked  with  a  deep  sigh  at  the  picture  of 
"Faith  and  Love,"  fired  by  the  lights  of  sunset,  where 
Winnie's  face  seemed  alive. 

"Well,"  said  he,  "as  she  did  not  come,  I  worked  at  my 
painting  of  'Ruth'  all  day;  and  on  the  next  morning,  as  I 
was  starting  for  Primrose  Court  to  seek  her,  Mrs.  Gudgeon 
came  kicking  frantically  at  the  street-door.  When  it  was 
opened,  she  came  stamping  upstairs,  and  as  I  advanced  to 
meet  her,  she  shook  her  fists  in  my  face,  shouting  out:  'I 
could  tear  your  eyes  out,  you  vagabones.'  Why,  what  is 
the  matter?'  I  asked  in  great  surprise.  'You've  bin  and 
killed  her,  that's  all,'  said  the  woman,  foaming  at  the  mouth. 
She  then  told  me  that  her  daughter,  almost  immediately 
on  reaching  home  after  having  left  the  studio  in  the  com- 
pany of  my  servant,  had  fallen  down  in  a  swoon.    A  sue- 


296  Aylwin 

cession  of  swoons  followed.  She  never  rallied.  She  was 
then  lying  dead  in  Primrose  Court." 

"And  what  then?    Answer  me  quickly." 

"She  asked  me  to  give  her  money  that  her  daughter 
might  be  buried  respectably  and  not  by  the  parish.  I  told 
her  it  was  all  hallucination  about  the  girl  being  her  daugh- 
ter, and  that  a  spiritual  body  could  not  be  buried,  but  she 
seemed  so  genuinely  distressed  that  I  gave  her  the  money." 

"Spiritual  body!  Hallucination!"  I  said.  "I  heard  her 
voice  in  the  London  streets,  and  she  was  selling  baskets 
at  the  theatre  door.    Where  shall  I  find  the  house?" 

"It  is  of  no  use  for  you  to  go  there,"  he  said. 

"Nothing  shall  prevent  my  going  at  once."  A  feverish 
yearning  had  come  upon  me  to  see  the  body. 

"If  you  will  go,"  said  Wilderspin,  "it  is  No.  2,  Primrose 
Court,  Great  Queen  Street,  Holborn." 


11. 

I  HURRIED  out  of  the  housc,  and  soon  finding  a  cab  I  drove 
to  Great  Queen  Street. 

My  soul  had  passed  now  into  another  torture-chamber. 
It  was  being  torn  between  two  warring,  maddening  forces 
— the  passionate  desire  to  see  her  body,  and  the  shrinking 
dread  of  undergoing  the  ordeal.  At  one  moment  I  felt — as 
palpably  as  I  felt  it  on  the  betrothal  night — her  slim  figure, 
soft  as  a  twine  of  flowers  in  my  arms :  at  the  next  I  was 
clasping  a  corpse — a  rigid  corpse  in  rags.  And  yet  I  can 
scarcely  say  that  I  had  any  thoughts.  At  Great  Queen 
Street  I  dismissed  the  cab,  and  had  some  little  difficulty  in 
finding  Primrose  Court,  a  miserable  narrow  alley.  I 
knocked  at  a  door  which,  even  in  that  light,  I  could  see  was 
a  peculiarly  wretched  one.  After  a  considerable  delay  the 
door  was  opened  and  a  face  peered  out — the  face  of  the 
woman  whom  I  had  seen  in  Cyril's  studio.  She  did  not  at 
first  seem  to  recognize  me.  She  was  evidently  far  gone  in 
liquor,  and  looked  at  me,  murmuring,  "You're  one  o'  the 
cussed  body-snatchers ;  I  know  you :  you  belong  to  the 
Rose  Alley  'Forty  Thieves.'  You'll  swing — every  man  Jack 
o'  ye'll  swing  yet,  mind  if  you  don't," 


The    Irony  of   Heaven  297 

At  the  sight  of  the  squaUd  house  in  which  Winifred  had 
Hved  and  died  I  passed  into  a  new  world  of  horror.  Dead 
matter  had  become  conscious,  and  for  a  second  or  two  it 
was  not  the  human  being  before  me,  but  the  rusty  iron,  the 
broken  furniture,  the  great  patches  of  brick  and  dirty  mor- 
tar where  the  plaster  had  fallen  from  the  walls, — it  was  these 
which  seemed  to  have  life, — a  terrible  life — and  to  be  talking 
to  me,  telling  me  what  I  dared  not  listen  to  about  the 
triumph  of  evil  over  good.  I  knew  that  the  woman  was 
still  speaking,  but  for  a  time  I  heard  no  sound — my  senses 
could  receive  no  impressions  save  from  the  sinister  elo- 
quence of  the  dead  and  yet  living  matter  around  me.  Not 
an  object  there  that  did  not  seem  charged  with  the  wicked 
message  of  the  heartless  Fates. 

At  length,  and  as  I  stood  upon  the  doorstep,  a  trembling, 
a  mighty  expectance,  seized  me  like  an  ague-fit ;  and  I 
heard  myself  saying,  "I  am  come  to  see  the  body,  Mrs, 
Gudgeon."  Then  I  saw  her  peer,  blinking,  into  my  face, 
as  she  said: 

"Oh,  oh,  it's  you,  is  it?  It's  one  o'  the  lot  as  keeps  the 
studeros,  is  it? — the  cussed  Chelsea  lot  as  killed  her.  I 
recklet  yer  a-starin'  at  the  goddess  Joker !  So  you'r  come 
to  see  my  poor  darter's  body,  are  you?  How  werry  kind, 
to  be  sure !  Pray  come  in,  gentleman,  an'  pray  let  the 
beautiful  goddess  Joker  be  perlite  an'  show  sich  a  nice  kind 
wisiter  the  way  up-stairs." 

She  took  a  candle,  and  with  a  mincing,  mocking  move- 
ment, curtseying  low  at  every  step,  she  backed  before  me, 
and  then  stood  waiting  at  the  foot  of  the  staircase  with  a 
drunken  look  of  satire  on  her  features. 

"Pray  go  up-stairs  fust,  gentleman,"  said  she;  "I  can't 
think  o'  goin'  up  fust,  an'  lettin'  my  darter's  kind  wisiter 
foller  behind  like  a  sarvint.  I  'opes  we  knows  our  manners 
better  nor  that  comes  to  in  Primrose  Court." 

"None  of  this  foolery  now,  woman,"  said  I.  "There's  a 
time  for  everything,  you  know." 

"How  right  he  is  !"  she  exclaimed,  nodding  to  the  flicker- 
ing candle  in  her  hand.  "There's  a  time  for  cverythink, 
an'  this  is  the  time  for  makin'  a  peep-show  of  my  pore 
darter's  body.    Oh,  yes  !" 

I  mounted  a  shaky  staircase,  the  steps  of  which  were 
some  of  them  so  broken  away  that  the  ascent  was  no 
easy  matter.    The  miserable  light  from  the  woman's  candle, 


298  Aylwin 

as  I  entered  the  room,  seemed  suddenly  to  shoot  up  in 
a  column  of  dazzling  brilliance  that  caused  me  to  close  my 
eyes  in  pain,  so  unnaturally  sensitive  had  they  been  ren- 
dered by  the  terrible  expectance  of  the  sight  that  was  about 
to  sear  them. 


When  I  re-opened  my  eyes,  I  perceived  that  in  the  room 
there  was  one  window,  which  looked  like  a  trap-door;  on 
the  red  pantiles  of  the  opposite  roof  lay  a  smoke-dimmed 
sheet  of  moonlight.  On  the  floor  at  the  further  end  of  the 
garret,  where  the  roof  met  the  boards  at  a  sharp  angle,  a 
mattress  was  spread.    Then  speech  came  to  me. 

"Not  there  \"  I  groaned,  pointing  to  the  hideous  black- 
looking  bed,  and  turning  my  head  away  in  terror.  The 
woman  burst  into  a  cackling  laugh. 

"Not  there?  Who  said  she  zvas  there?  /  didn't.  If 
you  can  see  anythink  there  besides  a  bed  an'  a  quilt,  you've 
got  eyes  as  can  make  picturs  out  o'  nothink,  same  as  my 
darter's  eyes  could  make  'em,  pore  dear." 

"Ah,  what  do  you  mean?"  I  cried,  leaping  to  the  side 
of  the  mattress,  upon  which  I  now  saw  that  no  dead  form 
was  lying. 

For  a  moment  a  flash  of  joy  as  dazzling  as  a  fork  of 
lightning  seemed  to  strike  through  my  soul  and  turn  my 
blood  into  a  liquid  fire  that  rose  and  blinded  my  eyes. 

"Not  dead,"  I  cried;  "no,  no,  no!  The  pitiful  heavens 
would  have  rained  blood  and  tears  at  such  a  monstrous 
tragedy.  She  is  not  dead — not  dead  after  all !  The  hideous 
dream  is  passing." 

"Oh,  ain't  she  dead,  pore  dear? — ain't  she?  She's  dead 
enough  for  one,"  said  the  woman ;  "but  'ow  can  she  be 
there  on  that  mattress,  when  she's  buried,  an'  the  prayers 
read  over  her,  like  the  darter  of  the  most  'spectable  mother 
as  ever  lived  in  Primrose  Court!  That's  what  the 
neighbours  say  o'  me.  The  most  'spectable  mother  as 
ever " 

"Buried!"  I  said,  "who  buried  her?" 

"Who  buried  her?    Why,  the  parish,  in  course." 

Despair  then  again  seemed  to  send  a  torrent  of  ice-water 
through  my  veins.  But  after  a  time  the  passionate  desire  to 
see  her  body  leapt  up  within  my  heart. 

At  this  moment  Wilderspin,  who  had  evidently  followed 


The    Irony   of   Heaven  299 

me  with  remarkable  expedition,  came  upstairs  and  stood  by 
my  side. 

"I  must  go  and  see  the  grave,"  I  said  to  him.  "I  must 
see  her  face  once  more.  I  must  petition  the  Home  Secre- 
tary. Nothing  can  and  nothing  shall  prevent  my  seeing 
her — no,  not  if  I  have  to  dig  down  to  her  with  my  nails." 

"An'  who  the  dickens  are  you  as  takes  on  so  about  my 
darter?"  said  the  woman,  holding  the  candle  to  my  face. 

"Drunken  brute!"  said  I.    "Where  is  she  buried?" 

"Well,  I'm  sure !"  said  the  woman  in  a  mincing,  sarcastic 
voice.  "How  werry  unperlite  you  is  all  at  wunst !  how  werry 
rude  you  speaks  to  such  a  werry  'spectable  party  as  I  am ! 
You  seem  to  forgit  who  I  am.  Ain't  I  the  goddess  as 
likes  to  'ave  'er  little  joke,  an'  likes  to  wet  both  eyes,  and 
as  plays  sich  larks  with  her  flummeringeroes  and  drum- 
ming-dairies an'  ring-tailed  monkeys  an'  men?" 

When  I  saw  the  creature  whip  up  the  quilt  from  the 
mattress,  and  holding  it  over  her  head  like  a  veil,  leer 
hideously  in  imitation  of  Cyril's  caricature,  a  shudder  went 
again  through  my  frame — a  strange  kind  of  dementia  came 
upon  me ;  my  soul  again  seemed  to  leave  my  body — seemed 
to  be  lifted  through  the  air  and  beyond  the  stars,  crying 
in  agony,  "Shall  there  be  evil  in  a  city,  and  the  Lord  hath 
not  done  it?"  Yet  all  the  while,  though  my  soul  seemed 
fleeing  through  infinite  space,  where  a  pitiless  universe 
was  waltzing  madly  round  a  ball  of  cruel  fire — all  the  while 
I  was  acutely  conscious  of  looking  down  upon  the  dreadful 
dream-world  below,  looking  down  into  a  frightful  garret 
where  a  dialogue  between  two  dream-figures  was  going 
on — a  dialogue  between  Wilderspin  and  the  woman,  each 
word  of  which  struck  upon  my  ears  like  a  sharp-edged 
flint,  though  it  seemed  millions  of  miles  away. 


"What  made  you  trick  me  like  this?  Where  is  the  money 
I  gave  you  for  the  funeral  ?" 

"That's  werry  true,  about  that  money,  an'  where  is  it? 
The  orkerdest  question  about  money  alius  is — 'Where  is 
it?'  The  money  for  that  funeral  I  'ad.  I  won't  deny  that. 
The  orkcrd  question  ain't  that :  it's  'Where  is  it?'  But  you 
see,  arter  I  left  your  studero  I  sets  on  that  pore  gal's  bed 
a-cryin'  fit  to  bust ;  then  I  goes  out  into  Clement's  Alley, 
and  I  calls  on  Mrs.  Mix— that's  a  werry  dear  friend  of  mine. 


300  Aylwin 

the  mother  o'  seven  child'n  as  are  alius  a-settin'  on  my 
doorstep,  an'  she  comes  out  of  Yorkshire  you  must  know, 
an'  she's  been  a  streaker  in  her  day  (for  she  was  well  ofT 
wonst  was  Mrs.  Mix  afore  she  'ad  them  seven  dirty-nosed 
child'n  as  sets  on  her  neighbours'  doorsteps) —  an'  she  sez, 
sez  she,  'My  pore  Meg'  (meanin'  me)  I've  bin  the  mother 
o'  fourteen  beautiful  clean-nosed  child'n,  an'  I've  streaked 
an'  buried  seven  on  'em,  so  I  ought  to  know  somethink 
about  corpuses,  an'  I  tell  you  this  corpse  o'  your  darter's 
must  be  streaked  an'  buried  at  wonst,  for  she  died  in  a 
swownd.  An'  there's  nothink  like  the  parishes  for  buryin' 
folk  quick,  an'  I  dessay  the  cofhn's  ordered  by  this  time, 
an'  I  dessay  the  gent  gev  you  that  money  just  to  make  you 
comfable  like,  seein'  as  he  killed  your  darter.'  That's  what 
Mrs.  Mix  says  to  me.  So  the  parish  comed  an'  brought  a 
coffin  an'  tookt  her,  pore  dear.  And  I've  cried  myself 
stupid-like,  bein'  her  pore  mother  as  'es  lost  her  on'y  darter 
— an'  I  was  just  a-tryin'  to  make  myself  comfable  when  this 
'ere  young  tofif  as  seems  so  werry  drunk  comes  a-rappin'  at 
my  door  fit  to  rap  the  'ouse  down." 

"Has  she  been  buried  at  all  ?  How  can  a  spiritual  body 
be  buried?" 

"  'Buried  at  all?'  What  do  you  mean  by  insinivatin'  to 
the  pore  gal's  conflicted  mother  as  she  p'rap's  ain't  buried 
at  all?  You're  a-makin'  me  cry  ag'in.  She  lays  comfable 
enough  underneath  a  lot  of  other  coffins,  in  the  pauper  part 
of  the  New  North  Cimingtary." 

"Underneath  a  lot  of  others ;  how  can  that  be  ?" 

"What !  ain't  you  tofifs  never  seed  a  pauper  finneral  ?  Now 
that's  a  pity ;  and  sich  nice  toflfs  as  they  are,  a-settin'  their- 
selves  up  to  look  arter  the  darters  o'  pore  folks.  P'raps 
you  never  thought  how  we  was  buried.  We're  buried,  when 
our  time  comes,  and  then  they're  werry  kind  to  us,  the 
parish  tofifs  is  : — It's  in  a  lump — six  at  a  time — astheyburies 
us,  and  sich  nice  deal  coffins  they  makes  us,  the  parish 
toffs  does,  an'  sich  nice  lamp-black  they  paints  'em  with  to 
make  'em  look  as  if  they  was  covered  with  the  best  black 
velvid ;  an'  then  sich  a  nice  sarmint — none  o'  your  retail  sar- 
mints,  but  a  hulsale  sarmint — they  reads  over  the  lot,  an' 
into  one  hole  they  packs  us  one  atop  o'  the  other,  jest  like 
a  pile  o'  the  werry  best  Yarmith  bloaters,  an'  that's  a  good 
deal  more  sociable  an'  comfable,  the  parish  toffs  thinks, 
than  puttin'  us  in  single ;  so  it  is,  for  the  matter  o'  that." 


The    Irony    of   Heaven  301 

*  *  ^:  -'f  *  * 

Then  I  heard  no  more;  for  at  the  intolerable  picture 
called  up  by  the  woman's  words,  my  soul  in  its  misery 
seemed  to  have  soared,  scared  and  trembling,  above  and 
beyond  the  heavens  at  whose  futile  gates  it  had  been  moan- 
ing, till  at  last  it  sank  at  the  feet  of  the  mighty  power  that 
my  love  had  striven  with  on  the  sands  of  Raxton  when  the 
tide  was  coming  in — some  pale  and  cruel  ruler  whose  brow 
I  saw  wrinkled  with  the  woman's  mocking  smile — some 
frightful  columbine-queen,  wicked,  bowelless  and  blind, 
shaking  a  starry  cap  and  bells,  and  chanting — 

"I  lent  the  drink  of  Day 

To  gods  for  feast; 
I  poured  the  river  of  Night 

On  gods  surceased: 
Their  blood  was  Nin-ki-gal's." 

And  there  at  the  feet  of  the  awful  jesting  hag.  Circumstance, 
I  could  only  cry  "Winnie !  my  poor  Winnie !"  while  over 
my  head  seemed  to  pass  Necessity  and  her  black  ages  of 
despair. 

When  I  came  to  myself  I  said  to  the  woman  : 

"You  can  point  out  the  grave?" 

"Well,  yes,"  said  she,  turning  round  sharply ;  "but  may  I 
ax  who  the  dickens  you  are? — an'  what  makes  you  so  cut 
up  about  a  pore  woman's  darter?  It's  right-on  beautiful  to 
see  how  kind  gentlemen  is  now-a-days" ;  and  she  turned 
and  tried,  stumbling,  to  lead  the  way  downstairs. 

As  we  left  the  room  I  turned  round  to  look  at  it.  The 
picture  of  the  mattress,  now  nearly  hidden  in  the  shadows — 
the  picture  of  the  other  furniture  in  the  room — two  chairs — 
or  rather  one  and  a  part  of  a  chair,  for  the  rails  of  the  back 
were  gone — a  table,  a  large  brown  jug,  the  handle  of  which 
had  been  replaced  by  a  piece  of  string,  and  a  white  wash- 
hand  basin,  with  most  of  the  rim  broken  away,  and  a  shal- 
low tub  apparently  used  for  a  bath — seemed  to  sink  into 
my  flesh  as  though  bitten  in  by  the  etcher's  aquafortis. 

Winifred's  sleeping  room ! 

"Of  course  she  wasn't  her  daughter,"  said  Wilderspin, 
meditatively,  as  we  stood  on  the  stairs. 

"Not  my  darter!  Why,  in  course  she  was.  What  an 
imperent  thing  to  say,  sure//c!" 

"There  is  one  thing  I  wish  to  say  to  you,"  said  he  to  the 
woman.    "\Mien  I  agreed  with  you  as  to  the  sum  to  be  paid 


302  Ayiwin 

for  the  model's  sittings,  it  was  clearly  understood  that  she 
was  to  sit  to  no  other  artist,  and  that  the  match-selling  was 
to  cease." 

"Well,  and  'ave  I  broke  my  word?" 

"A  person  has  heard  her  singing  and  seen  her  selling 
baskets,"  I  said. 

"The  person  tells  a  lie,"  said  the  woman,  with  a  dogged 
and  sullen  look,  and  in  a  voice  that  grew  thicker  with  every 
word.    "Ain't  there  sich  things  as  doubles?" 

At  these  last  words  my  heart  gave  a  sudden  leap. 

We  left  the  house,  and  neither  of  us  spoke  till  we  got  into 
the  Strand. 

"Did  you  see  the — body  at  all?"  I  asked  Wilderspin. 

"Oh,  yes.  After  I  gave  her  the  money  for  the  funeral  I 
went  to  Primrose  Court.  The  woman  took  me  upstairs, 
and  there  on  the  mattress  lay — what  the  poor  woman  be- 
lieved to  be  the  earthly  body  of  an  earthly  daughter.  It 
was  covered  with  a  quilt.  Over  the  face  a  ragged  shawl 
had  been  thrown." 

"Yes,  yes.    She  raised  the  shawl?" 

"Yes,  the  woman  went  and  held  the  candle  over  the  head 
of  the  mattress  and  uncovered  the  face;  and  there  lay  she 
whom  the  woman  believed  to  be  her  daughter,  and  whom 
you  believe  to  be  the  young  lady  you  seek,  but  whom  I 
knmv  to  be  a  spiritual  body — the  perfect  type  that  was  sent 
to  me  in  order  that  I  might  fulfill  my  mission.  You  groan, 
Mr.  Ayiwin,  but  remember  that  you  have  lost  only  a  dream, 
a  beautiful  hallucination  ;  I  have  lost  a  reality :  there  is  noth- 
ing real  but  the  spiritual  world." 


III. 

As  I  wandered  about  the  streets  after  parting  from  Wilder- 
spin,  what  were  my  emotions?  If  I  could  put  them  into 
words,  is  there  one  human  being  in  ten  thousand  who 
would  understand  me?  Happily,  no.  For  there  is  not  one 
in  ten  thousand  who,  having  sounded  the  darkest  depths 
of  human  misery,  will  know  how  strong  is  Hope  when  at 
the  true  death-struggle  with  Despair.  "Hope  in  the  human 
breast,"  wrote  my  father,  "is  a  passion,  a  wild,  a  lawless,  and 
an  indomitable  passion,  that  almost  no  cruelty  of  Fate  can 
conquer." 


The    Irony    of    Heaven  303 

Many  a  j)asser-by  in  the  streets  of  London  that  night 
must  have  asked  himself,  What  lunatic  is  this  at  large?  At 
one  moment  I  would  bound  along  the  pavement  as  though 
propelled  by  wings,  scarcely  seeming  to  touch  the  pave- 
ment with  my  feet.  At  the  next  I  would  stop  in  a  cold 
perspiration  and  say  to  myself,  "Idiot,  is  it  possible  that 
you,  so  learned  in  suffering — you,  whom  Destiny,  or 
Heaven,  or  Hell,  has  taken  in  hand  as  a  special  sport — can 
befool  yourself  with  Hope  now,  after  the  terrible  comedy 
by  which  you  and  the  ancestral  idiots  from  whom  you 
sprang  amused  Queen  Nin-ki-gal  in  Raxton  crypt?" 

Hope  and  Despair  were  playing  at  shuttlecock  with  my 
soul.  Underneath  my  misery  there  flickered  a  thought 
which,  wild  as  it  was,  I  dared  not  dismiss — the  thought  that, 
after  all,  it  might  not  be  Winifred  who  had  died  in  that  den. 
Possible  it  was — however  improbable — that  I  might  be 
labouring  under  a  delusion.  My  imagination  might  have  ex- 
aggerated a  resemblance  into  actual  identity,  and  Winifred 
and  she  whom  Wilderspin  painted  might  be  two  different 
persons — and  there  might  be  hope  even  yet.  But  so  mo- 
mentous was  the  issue  to  my  soul,  that  the  mere  fact  of 
having  clearly  marshalled  the  arguments  on  the  side  of 
Hope  made  my  reason  critical  and  suspicious  of  their 
cogency.  From  the  sweet  sophisms  that  my  reason  had 
called  up,  I  turned,  and  there  stood  Despair,  ready  for  me 
behind  a  phalanx  of  arguments,  which  laughed  all  Hope's 
"ragged  regiment"  to  scorn. 

Had  not  my  mother  recognised  her?  Could  the  infalli- 
ble perceptive  faculties  of  my  mother  be  also  deceived? 

But  to  accept  the  fact  that  she  who  died  on  that  mattress 
Avas  little  Winnie  of  the  sands  was  to  go  stark  mad,  and  the 
very  instinct  of  self-preservation  made  me  clutch  at  every 
sophism  Hope  could  offer. 

"Did  not  the  woman  declare  that  the  singing-girl  and 
the  model  were  not  one  and  the  same  ?"  said  Hope.  "And 
if  she  did  not  lie,  may  you  not  have  been,  after  all,  hunting 
a  shadow  through  London? 

"It  might  not  have  been  Winifred,"  I  shouted. 

But  no  sooner  had  I  done  so  than  the  scene  in  the  studio 
■ — Wilderspin's  story  of  the  model's  terror  on  seeing  my 
mother's  portrait — came  upon  me,  and  "Dead  !  dead !"  rang 
through  me  like  a  funereal  knell ;  all  the  superstructure  of 
Hope's  sophisms  was  shattered  in  a  moment  like  a  house  of 


304  Aylwin 

cards :  my  imagination  flew  away  to  all  the  London  grave- 
yards I  had  ever  heard  of ;  and  there,  in  the  part  divided  by 
the  pauper  Hne,  my  soul  hovered  over  a  grave  newly  made, 
and  then  dived  down  from  coffin  to  coffin,  one  piled  above 
another,  till  it  reached  Winifred,  lying  pressed  down  by  the 
superincumbent  mass ;  those  eyes  staring. 
Yes ;  that  night  I  was  mad ! 


I  could  not  walk  fatigue  into  my  restless  limbs. 

Morning  broke  in  curdling  billows  of  fire  over  the  east  of 
London — which  even  at  this  early  hour  was  slowly  growing 
hazy  with  smoke.  I  found  myself  in  Primrose  Court,  look- 
ing at  that  squalid  door,  those  squalid  windows.  I  knocked 
at  the  door.  No  answer  came  to  my  summons,  and  I 
knocked  again  and  again.  Then  a  window  opened  above 
my  head,  and  I  heard  the  well-known  voice  of  the  woman 
exclaiming : 

"Who's  that?  Poll  Onion's  out  to-night,  and  the  rooms 
are  emp'y  'cept  mine.    Why,  God  bless  me,  man,  is  it  you  ?" 

"Hag !  that  was  not  your  daughter." 

She  slammed  the  window  down. 

"Let  me  in,  or  I  will  break  the  door." 

The  window  was  opened  again. 

"Lucky  as  I  didn't  leave  the  front  door  open  to-night, 
as  I  mostly  do.  What  do  you  want  to  skeer  a  pore  woman 
for?"  she  bawled.  "Go  away,  else  I'll  call  up  the  people 
in  Great  Queen  Street." 

"Mrs.  Gudgeon,  all  I  want  to  do  is  to  ask  you  a  question." 

"Ah,  but  that's  what  you  jis'  zvon't  do,  my  fine  gentleman. 
I  don't  let  you  in  again  in  a  hurry." 

"I  will  give  you  a  sovereign." 

"Honour  bright?"  bawled  the  old  woman;  "let  me  look 
at  it." 

"Here  it  is  in  my  hand." 

"Jink  it  on  the  stuns." 

I  threw  it  down. 

"Quid  seems  to  jink  all  right,  anyhow^"  she  said,  "though 
I'm  more  used  to  jink  of  a  tanner  than  a  quid  in  these 
cussed  times.    You  won't  skeer  me  if  I  come  down?" 

"No,  no." 

At  last  I  heard  her  fumbling  inside  at  the  lock  and  then 
the  door  opened. 


The    Irony    of    Heaven  305 

"Why,  man  alive!  your  eyes  are  afire  jist  like  a  cat's  wi' 
drownded  kitlins." 

"She  was  not  your  daughter." 

"Not  my  darter?"  said  she,  as  she  stopped  to  pick  up 
the  sovereign.  "You  ain't  a-goin'  to  catch  me  the  likes  o' 
that.  The  Beauty  not  my  darter!  All  the  court  knows 
she  was  my  own  on'y  darter.  I'll  swear  afore  all  the  beaks 
in  London  as  I'm  the  mother  of  my  on'y  darter  Winifred, 
alius  wur  'er  mother,  and  alius  W'Ull  be ;  an'  if  she  went 
a-beggin'  it  worn't  my  fort.  She  liked  beggin',  poor  dear; 
some  gals  does." 

"Her  name  Winifred !"  I  cried,  with  a  pang  at  my  heart 
as  sharp  as  though  there  had  been  a  reasonable  hope  till 
now. 

"In  course  her  name  was  Winifred." 

"Liar !    How  came  she  to  be  called  Winifred?" 

"Well,  I'm  sure !  Mayn't  a  Welsh-man's  w-ife  give  her 
own  on'y  Welsh  darter  a  Welsh  name?  Us  poor  folks  is 
come  to  somethink !  P'raps  you'll  say  I  ain't  a  Welsh- 
man's wife  next?  It's  your  own  cussed  lot  as  killed  her, 
ain't  it?  What  did  I  tell  the  shiny  Quaker  when  fust  I 
tookt  her  to  the  studero?  I  sez  to  the  shiny  un,  'She's 
jist  a  bit  touched  here,'  I  sez"  (tapping  her  own  head), 
"  'and  nothink  upsets  her  so  much  as  to  be  arsted  a  lot  o' 
questions,'  I  sez  to  the  shiny  un.  'The  less  you  talks  to  her,' 
I  sez,  'the  better  you'll  get  on  with  her,'  I  sez,  'and  the 
better  kind  o'  pictur  you'll  make  out  on  her,'  I  sez  to  the 
shiny  un ;  'an'  don't  you  go  an'  arst  who  her  father  is,'  I 
sez,  'for  that  word  'ull  bring  such  a  horful  look  on  her  face,' 
I  sez,  'as  is  enough  to  skeer  anybody  to  death.  I  sha'n't 
forget  the  look  the  fust  time  I  seed  it,'  I  sez.  That's  what 
I  sez  to  the  shiny  Quaker.  An'  yit  you  did  go  an'  worrit 
'er,  a-arstin'  'er  a  lot  o'  questions  about  'er  father.  You  did 
— I  know  you  did !  You  must  'a'  done  it — so  no  lies ;  for 
that  wur  the  on'y  thing  as  ever  skeered  'er,  arstin'  'er  about 
'er  father,  pore  dear.  .  .  .  Why,  man  alive !  what  are  you 
a-gurnin'  at?  an'  what  are  you  a-smackin'  your  forred  wi' 
your  'and  like  that  for,  an'  a-gurnin'  in  my  face  like  a 
Chessy  cat?  Blow'd  if  I  don't  b'lieve  you're  drunk.  An' 
who  the  dickens  are  you  a-callin'  a  fool,  Mr.  Imperance?" 

It  was  not  the  woman  but  myself  T  was  cursing  when  I 
cried  out.  "Fool !  besotted  fool !" 

Not  till  now  had  the  wild  hope  fied  which  had  led  me 


306  Aylwin 

back  to  the  den.  As  I  stood  shuddering  on  the  door-step 
in  the  cold  morning  Hght,  while  the  whole  unbearable  truth 
broke  in  upon  me,  I  could  hear  her  lips  murmuring : 

"Fool  of  ancestral  supersitions !  Fenella  Stanley's  fool ! 
Philip  Aylwin's  fool!  Where  was  the  besotted  fool  and 
plaything  of  besotted  ancestors,  when  the  truth  was  burn- 
ing so  close  beneath  his  eyes  that  it  is  wonderful  they  were 
not  scorched  into  recognising  it  ?  Where  was  he  when,  but 
for  superstitions  grosser  than  those  of  the  negroes  on  the 
Niger  banks,  he  might  have  saved  the  living  heart  and 
centre  of  his  little  world?  Where  was  the  rationalist  when 
but  for  superstitions  sucked  in  with  his  mother's  milk,  he 
would  have  gone  to  a  certain  studio,  seen  a  certain  picture 
which  would  have  sent  him  on  the  wings  of  the  wind  to  find 
and  rescue  and  watch  over  the  one  for  whom  he  had  re- 
nounced all  the  ties  of  kindred  ?  Where  was  then  the  most 
worthy  descendant  of  a  line  of  ancestral  idiots — Romany 
and  Gorgio — stretching  back  to  the  days  when  man's  com- 
peers, the  mammoth  and  the  cave-bear,  could  have  taught 
him  better?  Rushing  down  to  Raxton  church  to  save  her ! 
— to  save  her  by  laying  a  poor  little  trinket  upon  a  dead 
man's  breast!" 

After  the  paroxysm  of  self-scorn  had  partly  exhausted 
itself,  I  stood  staring  in  the  woman's  face. 

"Well,"  said  she,  "I  thought  the  shiny  Quaker  was  a  rum 
'un,  but  blow  me  if  you  ain't  a  rummyer." 

"Her  name  was  Winifred,  and  the  word  'Father'  pro- 
duced fits,"  I  said,  not  to  the  woman,  but  to  my  soul,  in 
mocking  answer  to  its  own  woe.  "What  about  my  father's 
spiritualism  now  ?  Good  God !  Is  there  no  other  ancestral 
tomfoolery,  no  other  of  Superstition's  patent  Aylwinian 
soul-salves  for  the  philosophical  Nature-worshipper  and 
apostle  of  rationalism  to  fly  to  ?     Her  name  was  Winifred !" 

"Yis;  don't  I  say  'er  name  wur  Winifred?"  said  the 
woman,  who  thought  I  was  addressing  her.  "You're  jist 
like  a  poll-parrit  with  your  'Winifred,  Winifred,  Winifred.' 
That  was  'er  name,  an'  she  'ad  a  shock,  pore  dear,  an'  it 
was  all  along  of  you  at  the  studero  a-talkin'  about  'er  father. 
You  7)iiist  a-talked  about  'er  father:  so  no  lies.  She  'ad 
fits  arter  that,  in  course  she  'ad.  Why,  you'll  make  me  die 
a-larfin'  with  your  poll-parritin'  ways,  sayin'  'a  shock,  a 
shock,  a  shock,'  arter  me.     In  course  she  'ad  a  shock;  she 


The    Irony    of    Heaven  307 

ad  it  when  she  was  a  little  gal  o'  six.  My  pore  Bill  (that's 
my  'usband  as  now  lives  in  the  fine  'Straley)  was  a'most 
killed  a'fightin'  a  Irishman.  They  brought  'im  'um  an'  laid 
'im  afore  'er  werry  eyes,  an'  the  sight  throw'd  'er  into 
high-strikes,  an'  arter  that  the  name  of  'father'  alius  throwed 
'er  into  high-strikes,  an'  that's  why  I  told  'em  at  the 
studero  never  to  say  that  word.  An'  I  know  you  must 
'a'  said  it,  some  o'  your  cussed  lot  must,  or  else  why  should 
my  pore  darter  'a'  'ad  the  high-strikes  ?  Nothin'  else  never 
gev  'er  no  high-strikes  only  talkin'  to  'er  about  'er  father. 
An'  as  to  me  a-sendin'  'er  a-beggin',  I  tell  you  she  liked 
beggin'.  I  gev  her  baskets  to  sell,  an'  flowers  to  sell,  an' 
yet  she  ivould  beg.  I  tell  you  she  liked  beggin'.  Some 
gals  does.  She  was  touched  in  the  'ead,  an'  she  used  to  say 
she  must  beg,  an'  there  was  nothink  she  used  to  like  so 
much  as  to  stan'  with  a  box  o'  matches  a-jabberin'  a  tex' 
out  o'  the  Bible  unless  it  was  singin'.  There  you  are, 
a-larfin'  and  a-gurnin'  agin.  If  I  wur  on'y  'arf  as  drunk  as 
you  are  the  coppers  'ud  'a'  run  me  in  hours  ago ;  cuss  'em, 
an'  their  favouritin'  ways." 

At  the  truth  flashing  in  upon  me  through  these  fantastic 
lies,  I  had  passed  into  that  mood  when  the  grotesque 
wickedness  of  Fate's  awards  can  draw  from  the  victim  no 
loud  lamentations — when  there  are  no  frantic  blows  aimed 
at  the  sufferer's  own  poor  eyeballs  till  the  beard — like  the 
self-mutilated  Theban  king's — is  bedewed  with  a  dark  hail- 
shower  of  blood.  More  terrible  because  more  inhuman 
than  the  agony  imagined  by  the  great  tragic  poet  is  that 
most  awful  condition  of  the  soul  into  which  I  had  passed 
— when  the  cruelty  that  seems  to  work  at  Nature's  heart, 
to  vitalize  a  dark  universe  of  pain,  loses  its  mysterious 
aspect  and  becomes  a  mockery;  when  the  whole  vast  and 
merciless  scheme  seems  too  monstrous  to  be  confronted 
save  by  mad  peals  of  derisive  laughter — that  dreadful  laugh- 
ter which  bubbles  lower  than  the  fount  of  tears — that  laugh- 
ter which  is  the  heart's  last  language ;  when  no  words  can 
give  it  the  relief  of  utterance — no  words,  nor  wails,  nor 
moans. 

"Another  quid,"  bawled  the  woman  after  me,  as  I  turned 
away,  "another  quid,  an'  then  I'll  tell  you  somethink  to 
your  awantage.  Out  with  it.  and  don't  spile  a  good  mind." 

What  I  did  and  said  that  morning  as  I  wandered  through 


308  Aylwin 


the  streets  of  London  in  that  state  of  tearless  despair  and 
mad  unnatural  merriment,  one  hour  of  which  will  age  a 
man  more  than  a  decade  of  any  woe  that  can  find  a  voice  in 
lamentations,  remains  a  blank  in  my  memory. 

I  found  myself  at  the  corner  of  Essex  Street,  staring 
across  the  Strand,  which,  even  yet,  had  scarcely  awoke  into 
life.  Presently  I  felt  my  sleeve  pulled,  and  heard  the 
woman's  voice. 

"You  didn't  know  as  I  was  cluss  behind  you  all  the 
while,  a-watchin'  your  tantrums.  Never  spile  a  good  mind, 
my  young  swell.  Out  with  t'other  quid,  an'  then  I'll  tell 
you  somethink  about  my  pootty  darter  as  is  on  my  mind." 

I  gave  her  money,  but  got  nothing  from  her  save  more 
incoherent  lies  and  self-contradictions  about  the  time  of  the 
funeral. 

"Point  out  the  spot  where  she  used  to  stand  and  beg. 
No,  don't  stand  on  it  yourself,  but  point  it  out." 

"This  is  the  werry  spot.  She  used  to  hold  out  her 
matches  like  this  'ere, — my  darter  used, — an'  say  texes  out 
o'  the  Bible.    She  loved  beggin',  pore  dear !" 

"Texts  from  the  Bible?"  I  said,  staggering  under  a  new 
thought  that  seemed  to  strike  through  me  like  a  bar  of  hot 
metal.    "Can  you  remember  any  one  of  them  ?" 

"It  was  alius  the  same  tex',  an'  I  ought  to  remember  it 
well  enough,  for  I've  'eerd  it  times  enough.  She  wur 
like  you  for  poll-parrittin'  ways,  and  used  to  say  the  same 
thing  over  an'  over  agin.  It  wur  alius,  'Let  his  children  be 
wagabones  and  beg  their  bread ;  let  them  seek  it  also  out 
of  desolate  places.'  Why,  you're  at  it  ag'in — gurnin'  ag'in. 
You  must  be  drunk." 

Again  there  came  upon  me  the  involuntary  laughter  of 
heart-agony  at  its  tensest.  I  cried  aloud :  "Faith  and  Love ! 
Faith  and  Love !  That  farce  of  the  Raxton  crypt  with  the 
great-grandmother's  fool  on  his  knees  shall  be  repeated  for 
the  delight  of  Nin-ki-gal  and  the  Danish  skeletons  and  the 
ancestral  ghosts  from  Hugh  the  Crusader  down  to  the  hero 
of  the  knee-caps  and  mittens ;  and  there  shall  be  a  dance 
of  death  and  a  song,  and  the  burden  shall  be — 

"  'As  flic?  to  wanton  boys  are  we  to  the  gods: 
They  kill  us  for  their  sport.'  " 

Misery  had  made  me  a  maniac  at  last ;  my  brain  swam, 
and  the  head  of  the  woman  seemed  to  be  growing  before 


The    Irony    of    Heaven  309 

me — seemed  once  more  to  be  transfigured  before  me  into 
a  monstrous  mountainous  representation  of  an  awful  mock- 
ery-goddess and  columbine-queen,  down  whose  merry 
wrinkles  were  flowing  tears  that  were  at  once  tears  of 
Olympian  laughter  and  tears  of  the  oceanic  misery  of  Man. 

"Well,  you  are  a  rum  'un,  and  no  mistake,"  said  the 
woman.  "But  who  the  dickens  «r<?  you?  T/m^'.?  what  licks 
me.  Who  the  dickens  are  you?  Howsomever,  if  you'll 
fork  out  another  quid,  the  Queen  of  the  Jokes'll  tell  you 
some'ink  to  your  awantage,  an'  if  you  won't  fork  out  the 
Queen  o'  the  Jokes  is  mum." 

I  stood  and  looked  at  her — looked  till  the  street  seemed 
to  heave  under  my  feet  and  the  houses  to  rock.  After 
this  I  seem  to  have  wandered  back  to  Wilderspin's  studio, 
and  there  to  have  sunk  down  unconscious. 


XII. 


The    Revolving   Cage   of 
Circumstance 


XII. — THE    REVOLVING    CAGE 
OF    CIRCUMSTANCE 


I  WILL  not  trouble  the  reader  with  details  of  the  illness  that 
came  upon  me  as  the  result  of  my  mental  agony  and  physi- 
cal exhaustion.  At  intervals  I  was  aware  of  what  was  going 
on  around  me,  but  for  the  most  part  I  was  in  a  semi-coma- 
tose state.  1  realised  at  intervals  that  a  medical  man  was 
sitting  l)y  my  side,  as  1  lay  in  bed.  Then  I  had  a  sense  of 
])eing  moved  from  place  to  place ;  and  then  of  being  rocked 
by  the  waves.  Slowly  the  periods  of  consciousness  became 
more  frequent  and  also  more  prolonged. 

My  first  exclamation  was — "Dead!  Have  I  been  ill?" 
and  I  tried  to  raise  myself  in  vain. 

"Yes,  very  ill,"  said  a  voice,  my  mother's. 

"Dangerously?" 

"For  several  days  you  were  in  danger.  Your  recovery 
now  entirely  depends  upon  your  keeping  yourself  calm." 

"I  am  out  at  sea?" 

"Yes,"  said  my  mother ;  "in  Lord  Sleaford's  yacht." 

"How  did  I  come  here?" 

"Well,  Henry,  I  was  so  anxious  to  wait  for  a  day  or  two 
to  learn  the  sequel  of  the  dreadful  tragedy,  that  I  persuaded 
Lord  Sleaford  to  delay  sailing.  Next  day  he  called  at  Bel- 
grave  Square,  and  told  us  he  had  heard  that  you  had  been 
taken  suddenly  ill  and  were  lying  unconscious  at  the  studio. 
I  went  at  once  and  saw  the  medical  man,  Mr.  Finch,  whom 
Mr.  Wilderspin  had  called  in.  This  gentleman  took  a 
serious  view  of  your  case.  When  I  asked  him  what  could 
be  done  he  said  that  nothing  would  benefit  you  so  much  as 
removal  from  London,  and  reconmiended  a  sea  voyage. 
It  occurred  to  me  at  once  to  ask  Lord  Sleaford  if  we  might 


314  Aylwin 

take  yon  in  his  yacht,  and  he  with  his  usual  good  nature 
agreed,  and  agreed  also  that  Mr.  Finch  should  accompany 
us  as  your  medical  attendant." 

"You  know  all?"  I  said;  ''you  know  that  she  is  dead." 

"Alas !  yes." 

At  that  moment  the  doctor  came  into  the  cabin,  and  my 
mother  retired. 

"When  did  you  last  see  Wilderspin  ?"  I  asked  Mr.  Finch. 

"Before  leaving  England  to  join  a  friend  in  Paris  he  went 
to  Belgrave  Square  to  get  tidings  of  you,  and  I  was  there." 

"He  told  you — what  had  occurred  to  make  me  ill  ?" 

*'He  told  me  that  it  was  the  death  of  some  one  in  whom 
you  took  an  interest,  a  model  of  his,  but  told  it  in  such  a 
wild  and  excited  way  that  I  lost  patience  with  him.  His 
addled  brains  are  crammed  with  the  wildest  and  most 
ignorant  superstitions." 

"Did  you  ask  him  about  her  burial?" 

"I  did.  I  gathered  from  him  that  she  was  buried  by  the 
parish  in  the  usual  way.  But  I  assure  you  the  man's 
account  of  everything  that  occurred  was  so  bewildered  and 
so  incoherent  that  I  could  really  make  nothing  out  of  him. 
What  is  his  creed?  Is  it  Swedenborgianism ?  He  seems 
to  think  that  the  model  he  has  lost  is  a  spirit  (or  spiritual 
body,  to  use  his  own  jargon)  sent  to  him  by  the  artistic- 
minded  spirits  for  entirely  artistic  purposes,  but  snatched 
from  him  now  bv  the  mean  iealousy  of  the  same  spirit- 
world." 

"But  what  did  he  say  about  her  burial  ?" 

"Well,  he  seems  not  to  have  ignored  so  completely  the 
mundane  question  of  burying  this  spiritual  body  as  his 
creed  would  have  warranted,  for  he  gave  the  mother  money 
to  bury  it.  The  mother,  however,  seems  to  have  spent  the 
money  in  gin  and  to  have  left  the  duty  of  burying  the  spir- 
itual body  to  the  parish,  who  make  short  work  of  all  bodies  ; 
and,  of  course,  by  the  parish  she  was  buried,  you  may  rest 
assured  of  that,  though  the  artist  seems  to  think  that  she 
was  simply  translated  to  heaven  like  Elijah." 

"I  must  return  to  England  at  once,"  I  said.  "I  shall 
applv  to  the  Home  Secretary  to  have  the  body  disinterred." 

"Why,  sir?" 

"In  order  that  she  may  be  buried  in  a  proper  place,  to 
be  sure." 

"No  use.    You  have  no  locus  standi." 


The  Revolving  Cage  of  Circumstance   315 

"What  do  you  mean?" 

"You  are  not  a  relative,  and  to  ask  for  a  disinterment  for 
such  an  unimportant  reason  as  that  you,  a  stranger,  would 
prefer  to  see  her  buried  elsewhere,  would  be  idle." 

Sleaford  now  came  into  the  cabin.  I  thanked  him  for  his 
kindness,  but  told  him  I  must  return  at  once. 

"Even  if  your  health  permitted,"  he  said,  "it  is  impossible 
for  the  yacht  to  go  back.  I  have  an  appointment  to  meet 
a  yachting  friend.  But  in  any  case  depend  upon  it,  old 
fellow,  the  doctor  won't  hear  of  your  returning  for  a  long 
while  yet.  He  told  me  not  five  minutes  ago  that  nothing 
but  sea  air,  and  keeping  your  mind  tranquil,  you  know, 
will  restore  you." 

The  feeling  of  exhaustion  that  came  upon  me  as  he 
spoke  convinced  me  that  there  was  only  too  much  truth 
in  his  words.  I  felt  that  I  must  yield  to  the  inevitable ;  but 
as  to  tranquillity  of  mind,  my  entire  being  was  now  filled 
with  a  yearning  to  see  the  New  North  Cemetery — to  see 
her  grave.  I  seemed  to  long  for  the  very  pang  which  I 
knew  the  sight  of  the  grave  would  give  me. 

It  is  of  course  impossible  for  me  to  linger  over  that  cruise, 
or  to  record  any  of  the  incidents  that  took  place  at  the  ports 
at  which  we  touched  and  landed.  My  recovery,  or  rather 
my  partial  recovery,  was  slower  than  the  doctor  had  an- 
ticipated. Weeks  and  months  passed,  and  still  there  seemed 
but  little  improvement  in  me. 

The  result  was  that  I  was  obliged  to  yield  to  the  impor- 
tunities of  my  mother,  and  to  the  urgent  advice  of  Dr. 
Finch,  to  remain  on  board  Sleaford's  yacht  during  the 
entire  cruise,  and  afterwards  to  go  with  them  to  Italy. 

Absence  from  England  gave  me  not  the  smallest  respite 
from  the  grief  that  was  destroying  m.e. 

My  parting  with  my  mother  was  a  very  pathetic  one.  She 
was  greatly  changed,  and  I  knew  why.  The  furrows  Time 
sets  on  the  face  can  never  be  mistaken  for  those  which 
are  caused  by  the  passions.  The  struggle  between  pride 
and  remorse  had  been  going  on  apace ;  her  sufferings  had 
been  as  great  as  my  own. 

It  was  in  Rome  we  parted.  We  were  sitting  in  the  cool, 
perfumed  atmosphere  of  St.  Peter's,  and  for  the  moment  a 
soothing  wave  seemed  to  pass  over  my  soul.     For  some 


316  Aylwin 

little  time  there  had  been  silence  between  us.  At  length  I 
said,  "Mother,  it  seems  strange  indeed  for  me  to  have  to 
say  to  you  that  you  blamed  yourself  too  much  for  the  part 
you  took  in  the  tragedy  of  Winnie.  When  you  sent  her  into 
Wales  you  didn't  know  that  her  aunt  was  dead ;  you  did  it, 
as  you  thought,  for  her  good  as  well  as  for  mine." 

She  rose  as  if  to  embrace  me  and  then  sank  down  again. 

"But  you  don't  know  all,  Henry ;  you  don't  know  all.  I 
knew  her  aunt  was  dead,  though  Shales  did  not,  or  he 
would  never  have  taken  her.  All  that  concerned  me  was  to 
get  her  away  before  your  own  recovery.  I  thought  there 
might  be  relatives  of  hers  or  friends  whom  Shales  might 
find.  But  I  was  possessed  by  a  frenzied  desire  to  get  her 
away.  For  years  my  eyes  had  been  fixed  on  the  earldom. 
I  had  been  told  by  your  aunt  that  Cyril  was  consumptive, 
and  also  that  he  was  very  unlikely  to  marry." 

I  could  not  suppress  a  little  laugh.  "Ha,  ha !  Cyril  con- 
sumptive !  No  man's  stronger  and  sounder,  I  am  glad  to 
tell  you ;  but  if  by  ill-chance  he  should  die  and  the  title 
should  come  to  me,  then,  mother,  I'll  wear  the  coronet,  and 
it  shall  be  made  of  the  best  gingerbread  gilt  and  ornamented 
thus.  I'll  give  public  lectures  on  the  British  aristocracy  and 
its  origin,  and  its  present  relations  to  the  community,  and 
my  audience  shall  consist  of  society — that  society  which 
is  so  much  to  aunt  and  the  likes  of  her.  Society  shall  be 
my  audience,  and  then,  after  my  course  of  lectures  is  over, 
I  will  join  the  Gypsies.  But  pray  pardon  me,  mother.  I 
had  no  idea  I  should  thus  lose  my  temper.  I  should  not 
have  lost  it  so  entirely  had  I  not  witnessed  how  you  are 
suffering  from  the  tyranny  of  this  blatant  bugbear  called 
'Society.'  " 

"'My  suflfering,  Henry,  has  brought  me  nearer  to  your 
line  of  thought  than  you  may  suppose.  It  has  taught  me 
that  when  the  affections  are  deeply  touched  everything 
which  before  had  seemed  so  momentous  stands  out  in  a 
new  light,  that  light  in  which  the  insignificance  of  the  im- 
portant stands  revealed.  In  that  terrible  conflict  between 
you  and  me  on  the  night  following  the  landslip,  you  spoke 
of  my  'cruel  pride.'  Oh,  Henry,  if  you  only  knew  how  that 
cruel  pride  had  been  wiped  out  of  existence  by  remorse,  I 
believe  that  even  you  would  forgive  me.  I  believe  that 
even  she  would  if  she  were  here." 

"I  told  you  that  I  had  entirely  forgiven  you,  mother,  and 


The  Revolving  Cage  of  Circumstance   317 

that  I  was  sure  Winnie  would  forgive  you  if  she  were 
ahve." 

"You  did,  Henry,  but  it  did  not  satisfy  me;  I  felt  that  you 
did  not  know  all." 

"I  fear  you  have  been  very  unhappy,"  I  said. 

"I  have  been  constantly  thinking  of  Winifred  a  beggar  in 
the  streets  as  described  by  Wilderspin.  Oh,  Henry,  I  used 
to  think  of  her  in  the  charge  of  that  woman.  And  Miss 
Dalrymple,  who  educated  her,  tells  me  that  in  culture  she 
was  far  above  the  girls  of  her  own  class ;  and  this  makes 
the  degradation  into  which  she  was  forced  through  me  the 
more  dreadful  for  me  to  think  of.  I  used  to  think  of  her 
dying  in  the  squalid  den,  and  then  the  Italian  sunshine  has 
seemed  darker  than  a  London  fog.  Even  the  comfort  that 
your  kind  words  gave  me  was  incomplete,  for  you  did  not 
know  the  worst  features  of  my  cruelty." 

"But  have  you  had  no  respite,  mother?  Surely  the  in- 
tensity of  this  pain  did  not  last,  or  it  would  have  killed 
you." 

"The  crisis  did  pass,  for,  as  you  say,  had  it  lasted  in  its 
most  intense  form,  it  would  have  killed  me  or  sent  me  mad. 
After  a  while,  though  remorse  was  always  with  me,  I 
seemed  to  become  in  some  degree  numbed  against  its  sting. 
I  could  bear  at  last  to  live,  but  that  was  all.  Yet  there 
was  always  one  hour  out  of  twenty-four  when  I  was  over- 
mastered by  pathetic  memories,  such  as  nearly  killed  me 
with  pity — one  hour  when,  in  a  sudden  and  irresistible 
storm,  grief  would  still  come  upon  me  with  almost  its  old 
power.  This  was  on  awaking  in  the  early  morning.  I 
learnt  then  that  if  there  is  trouble  in  the  founts  of  life,  there 
is  nothing  which  stirs  that  trouble  like  the  twitter  of  the 
birds  at  dawn.  At  Florence,  I  would,  after  spending  the 
day  in  wandering  with  you  through  picture  galleries  or 
about  those  lovely  spots  near  Fiesole,  go  to  bed  at  night 
tolerably  calm  ;  I  would  sink  into  a  sleep,  haunted  no  longer 
by  those  dreams  of  the  tragedy  in  which  my  part  had  been 
so  cruel,  and  yet  the  very  act  of  waking  in  the  morning 
would  bring  upon  me  a  whirlwind  of  anguish;  and  then 
would  come  the  struggling  light  at  the  window,  and  the 
twitter  of  the  birds  that  seemed  to  say,  'Poor  child,  poor 
child !'  and  I  would  bury  my  face  in  my  pillow  and  moan." 

When  I  looked  in  her  face,  I  realised  for  the  first  time 
that  not  even  such  a  passion  of  pity  as  that  which  had  aged 


318  Aylwin 

me  is  so  cruel  in  its  ravages  as  Remorse.  To  gaze  at  her 
was  so  painful  that  I  turned  my  eyes  away. 

When  I  could  speak  I  said : 

"I  have  forgiven  you  from  the  bottom  of  my  heart, 
mother,  but,  if  that  does  not  give  you  comfort,  is  there 
anything  that  will?'' 

"Nothing,  Henry,  nothing  but  what  is  impossible  for  me 
ever  to  get — the  forgiveness  of  the  wronged  child  herself. 
That  I  can  never  get  in  this  world.  I  dare  only  hope  that 
by  prayers  and  tears  I  may  get  it  in  the  end.  Oh,  Henry, 
if  I  were  in  heaven  I  could  never  rest  until  I  had  sought 
her  out,  and  found  her  and  thrown  myself  on  her  neck  and 
said,  'Forgive  your  persecutor,  my  dear,  or  this  is  no  place 
for  me.'  " 


n. 

As  soon  as  I  reached  London,  thinking  that  Wilderspin 
was  still  on  the  Continent,  I  went  first  to  D'Arcy's  studio, 
but  was  there  told  that  D'Arcy  was  away — that  he  had 
been  in  the  country  for  a  long  time,  busy  painting,  and 
would  not  return  for  some  months.  I  then  went  to  Wilder- 
spin's  studio,  and  found,  to  my  surprise  and  relief,  that 
he  and  Cyril  had  returned  from  Paris.  I  learnt  from  the 
servant  that  Wilderspin  had  just  gone  to  call  on  Cyril;- 
accordingly  to  Cyril's  studio  I  went. 

"He  is  engaged  with  the  Gypsy-model,  sir,"  said  Cyril's 
man,  pointing  to  the  studio  door,  which  was  ajar.  "He  told 
me  that  if  ever  you  should  call  you  were  to  be  admitted  at 
once.    Mr.  Wilderspin  is  there  too." 

"You  need  not  announce  me,"  I  said  as  I  pushed  open 
the  door. 

Entering  the  studio,  I  found  myself  behind  a  tall  easel 
where  Cyril  was  at  work.  I  was  concealed  from  him,  and 
also  from  Wilderspin  and  Sinfi.  On  my  left  stood  Cyril's 
caricature  of  Wilderspin's  "Faith  and  Love,"  upon  which 
the  light  from  a  window  was  falling  aslant. 

Before  I  could  pass  round  the  easel  into  the  open  space 
I  was  arrested  by  overhearing  a  conversation  between  Cyril, 
Sinfi  and  Wilderspin. 

They  were  talking  about  her\ 

With  my  eyes  fixed  on  Cyril's  caricature  on  my  left  hand. 


The  Revolving  Cage  of  Circumstance   319 

1  stood,  every  nerve  in  my  body  seeming  to  listen  to  the 
talk,  while  the  veil  of  the  goddess-queen  in  the  caricature 
appeared  to  become  illuminated;  the  tragedy  of  our  love 
(from  the  spectacle  of  her  father's  dead  body  shining  in 
the  moonlight,  with  a  cross  on  his  breast,  down  to  the 
hideous-grotesque  scene  of  the  woman  at  the  corner  of 
Essex  Street,  appeared  to  be  represented  on  the  veil  of  the 
mocking  Queen  in  little  pictures  of  scorching  flame.  These 
are  the  words  I  heard  : 

"Keep  your  head  in  that  position,  Lady  Sinfi,"  said  Cyril, 
■'and  pray  do  not  get  so  excited." 

"I  thought  I  felt  the  Swimmin'  Rei  in  the  room,"  said 
Sinfi. 

"What  do  you  mean?" 

"I  thought  I  felt  the  stir  of  him  in  my  burk  [bosom]. 
Howsomever,  it  must  ha'  bin  all  a  fancy  o'  mine.  But  you 
see,  Mr.  Cyril,  she  wur  once  a  friend  o'  mine.  I  want  to 
know  what  skeared  her?  If  it  ivas  her  as  set  for  the  pictur, 
she'd  never  'a'  had  the  fit  if  she  hadn't  'a'  bin  skeared.  I 
s'pose  Mr.  Wilderspin  didn't  go  an'  say  the  word  'feyther' 
to  her?  I  s'pose  he  didn't  go  an'  ax  her  who  her  feyther 
was?" 

I  heard  Wilderspin's  voice  say,  "No,  indeed.  /  would 
never  have  asked  who  her  father  was.  Ah,  Mr.  Cyril,  I 
knew  how  mysteriously  she  had  come  to  me ;  why  should  I 
ask  who  was  her  father?  Her  earthly  parentage  was  all 
an  illusion.  But  you  will  remember  that  I  was  not  in  the 
studio  at  the  time  of  the  fit.  Mr.  Ebury  had  called  about 
a  commission,  and  I  had  gone  into  the  next  room  to  speak 
to  him.  You  came  into  the  studio  at  the  time,  Mr.  Cyril. 
When  I  returned,  I  found  her  in  the  fit,  and  you  standing 
over  her." 

"No,  don't  get  up,  Sinfi,  my  girl,"  I  heard  Cyril  say.  "Sit 
down  quietly,  and  I  will  tell  you  what  passed.  There  is  no 
doubt  I  did  ask  her  about  her  father,  poor  thing;  but  I 
did  it  with  the  best  intentions — did  it  for  her  good,  as  I 
thought — did  it  to  learn  whether  she  had  been  kidnapped, 
and  certainly  not  from  idle  curiosity." 

"Scepticism,  the  curse  of  the  age,"  said  Wilderspin. 

I  heard  Cyril  say,  "Who  coukl  have  thought  it  would 
turn  out  so?  But  you  yourself  had  told  me,  Wilderspin, 
of  Mother  Gudgeon's  injunction  not  to  ask  the  girl  who 
her  father  was,  and  of  course  it  had  upon  me  the  opposite 


320  Aylwin 

effect  the  funny  liag  had  intended  it  to  have  upon  you. 
It  was  hard  to  believe  that  such  a  flower  could  have  sprung 
from  such  a  root.  I  thought  it  very  likely  that  the  woman 
had  told  you  this  to  prevent  your  getting  at  the  truth 
about  their  connection ;  so  I  decided  to  question  the  model 
myself,  but  determined  to  wait  till  you  had  had  a  good 
number  of  sittings,  lest  there  should  come  a  quarrel  with  the 
woman." 

"Well,  an'  so  you  asked  her?"  said  Sinfi. 

"I  thought  the  moment  had  come  for  me  to  try  to  read 
the  puzzle,"  said  Cyril.  "So,  on  that  day  when  Ebury  called 
when  you,  Wilderspin,  had  left  us  together,  I  walked  up 
to  her  and  said,  'Is  your  father  alive?'  " 

"Ah !"  cried  Sinfi,  "it  was  as  I  thought.  It  was  the  word 
'feyther'  as  killed  her!    An'  what'll  become  o'  him?" 

"The  word  'father'  seemed  to  shoot  into  her  like  a  bul- 
let," said  Cyril.  "She  shrieked  'Father,'  and  her  face 
looked " 

"No,  don't  tell  me  how  she  looked !"  said  Sinfi.  "Mr. 
Wilderspin's  pictur'  o'  the  witch  and  the  lady  shows  how 
she  looked — whoever  she  was.  But  if  it  was  Winnie 
Wynne,  what'll  become  o'  him  ?" 

Then  I  heard  Cyril  address  Wilderspin  again.  "We  had 
great  difficulty,  you  remember,  Wilderspin,  in  bringing  her 
round,  and  afterwards  I  took  her  out  of  the  house,  put  her 
into  a  cab,  and  you  directed  vour  servant  whither  to  take 
her." 

"It  was  scepticism  that  ruined  all,"  I  heard  Wilderspin 
say. 

"And  yet,"  said  Sinfi,  "the  Golden  Hand  on  Snowdon 
told  as  he'd  marry  Winifred  Wynne.  Ah !  surely  the 
Swimmin'  Rei  is  in  the  room  !  I  thought  I  heard  that  choke 
come  in  his  throat  as  comes  when  he  frets  about  Winnie. 
Howsomever,  I  s'pose  it  must  ha'  bin  all  a  fancy  o'  mine." 

"You  make  me  laugh,  Sinfi,  about  this  golden  hand  of 
yours  that  is  stronger  than  the  hand  of  Death,"  said  Cyril ; 
"and  yet  I  wish  from  my  heart  I  could  believe  it." 

"My  poor  mammy  used  to  say,  'The  Gorgios  believes 
when  they  ought  to  disbelieve,  and  they  disbelieve  when  they 
ought  to  believe,  and  that  gives  the  Romanies  a  chance.'  " 

"Sinfi  Lovell,"  said  Wilderspin,  "that  saying  of  your 
mother's  touches  at  the  very  root  of  romantic  art." 

"Well,  if  Gorgios  don't  believe  enough,  Sinfi, — if  there  is 


The  Revolving  Cage  of  Circumstance   321 

not  enough  superstition  among  certain  Gorgio  acquaint- 
ances of  mine,  it's  a  pity,"  said  Cyril. 

"I  don't  know  what  you  are  a-talkin'  about  with  your 
romantic  art  an'  sich  hke,  but  I  do  know  that  nothink  can't 
go  agin  the  dukkeripen  o'  the  clouds,  but  if  I  was  on 
Snowdon  with  my  crwth  I  could  soon  tell  for  sartin  whether 
she's  alive  or  dead,"  said  Sinfi. 

"And  how?"  said  Cyril. 

"How?  By  playin'  on  the  hills  the  old  Welsh  dukkerin 
tune*  as  she  was  so  fond  on.  If  she  was  dead,  she  wouldn't 
hear  it,  but  if  she  was  alive  she  would,  and  her  living  mullof 
'ud  come  to  it,"  said  Sinfi. 

"Do  you  believe  that  possible?"  said  Cyril,  turning  to 
Wilderspin. 

"My  friend,"  said  Wilderspin,  "I  was  at  that  moment 
repeating  to  myself  certain  wise  and  pregnant  words  quoted 
from  an  Oriental  book  by  the  great  Philip  Aylwin — words 
which  tell  us  that  he  is  too  bold  who  dares  say  what  he  will 
believe,  what  disbelieve,  not  knowing  in  any  wise  the  mind 
of  God — not  knowing  in  any  wise  his  own  heart  and  what  it 
shall  one  day  sufTer." 

"But,"  said  Sinfi,  "about  her  as  sat  to  Mr.  Wilderspin ; 
did  she  never  talk  at  all,  Mr.  Cyril  ?" 

"Never ;  but  I  saw  her  only  three  times,"  said  Cyril. 

"Mr.  Wilderspin,"  said  Sinfi,  "did  she  never  talk?" 

"Only  once,  and  that  was  when  the  woman  addressed 
her  as  Winifred.  That  name  set  me  thinking  about  the 
famous  Welsh  saint  and  those  wonderful  miracles  of  hers, 
and  I  muttered  'St.  Winifred.'  The  face  of  the  model 
immediately  grew  bright  with  a  new  light,  and  she  spoke 
the  only  words  I  ever  heard  her  speak." 

"You  never  told  me  of  this,"  said  Cyril. 

"She  stooped,"  said  Wilderspin,  "and  went  through  a 
strange  kind  of  movement,  as  though  she  were  dipping 
water  from  a  well,  and  said,  'Please,  St.  Winifred,  bless  the 
holy  water  and  make  it  cure '  " 

"Ah,  for  God's  sake  stop!"  cried  Sinfi.  "Look!  the 
Swimmin'  Rei !  Pie's  in  the  room !  There  he  Stan's,  and 
he's  a-hearin'  every  word,  an'  it'll  kill  him  outright !" 

I  stared  at  Cyrii'b  picture  of  Lerena  for  which  Sinfi  was 
sitting.     I  heard  her  say  : 

*Iiicantation  son;.',. 
tWrailh   ur  fetch. 


322  Aylwin 

"There  ain't  nothink  so  cruel  as  seein'  him  take  on  like 
that,"  said  Sinfi.  "I've  seed  it  afore,  many's  the  time,  in  old 
Wales.  You'll  find  her  yit.  The  dukkeripen  says  you'll 
marry  her  yit,  and  you  will.  She  can't  be  dead  when  the 
sun  and  the  golden  clouds  say  you'll  marry  her  at  last.  Her 
as  is  dead  must  ha'  been  somebody  else." 

"Sinfi,  you  know  there  is  no  hope." 

"It  might  not  ha'  bin  your  Winnie,  arter  all,"  said  she. 
"It  might  ha'  bin  some  poor  innocent  as  her  feyther  used 
to  beat.  It's  wonderful  how  cruel  Gorgio  feythers  is  to 
poor  born  naterals.  And  she  might  ha'  heerd  in  London 
about  St.  Winifred's  Well  a-curin'  people." 

"Sinfi,"  I  said,  "you  know  there  is  no  hope.  And  I  have 
no  friend  but  you  now — I  am  going  back  to  the  Romanies." 

"No,  no,  brother,"  she  said,  "never  no  more." 

She  put  on  her  shawl.  I  rose  mechanically.  When  she 
bade  Cyril  and  Wllderspin  good-bye  and  passed  out  of  the 
studio,  I  did  so  too.  In  the  street  she  stood  and  looked 
wistfully  at  me,  as  though  she  saw  me  through  a  mist,  and 
then  bade  me  good-bye,  saying  that  she  must  go  to  Kings- 
ton Vale  where  her  people  were  encamped  in  a  hired  field. 
We  separated,  and  I  wandered  I  knew  not  whither. 


III. 

I  FOUND  myself  inqviiring  for  the  New  North  Cemetery, 
and  after  a  time  I  stood  looking  through  the  bars  of  tall 
iron  gates  at  long  lines  of  gravestones  and  dreary  hillocks 
before  me.  Then  I  went  in,  walking  straight  over  the  grass 
towards  a  grave-digger  in  the  sunshine.  He  looked  at  me, 
resting  his  foot  on  his  spade. 

"I  want  to  find  a  grave." 

"What  part  was  the  party  buried  in?" 

"The  pauper  part."  I  said. 

"Oh,"  said  he,  losing  suddenly  his  respectful  tone.  "When 
was  she  buried  ?    I  suppose  it  was  a  she  by  the  look  o'  you." 

"When?    I  don't  know  the  date." 

"Rather  a  wide  order  that,  but  there's  the  pauper  part." 
And  he  pointed  to  a  spot  at  some  little  distance,  where 
there  were  no  gravestones  and  no  shrubs.  I  walked  across 
to  this  Desert  of  Poverty,  which  seemed  too  cheerless  for 


The  Revolving  Cage  of  Circumstance   323 

a  place  of  rest.  I  stood  and  grazed  at  the  mounds  till  the 
black  coffins  underneath  grew  upon  my  mental  vision,  and 
seemed  to  press  upon  my  brain.  Thoughts  I  had  none, 
only  a  sense  of  being  another  person. 

The  man  came  slowly  towards  me,  and  then  looked  medi- 
tatively into  my  face.  I  shall  never  forget  him.  A  tall, 
salFow^  emaciated  man  he  was,  with  cheek-bones  high  and 
sharp  as  an  American  Indian's,  and  straight  black  hair.  He 
looked  like  a  wooden  image  of  Mephistopheles,  carved  with 
a  jack-knife. 

"Who  are  you?"  The  words  seemed  to  come,  not  from 
the  gravedigger's  mouth,  but  from  those  piles  of  lamp- 
blacked  coffins  which  were  searing  my  eyes  through  four 
feet  of  graveyard  earth.  By  the  fever-fires  in  my  brain  I 
seemed  to  see  the  very  faces  of  the  corpses. 

"Who  am  I  ?"  I  said,  to  myself  as  I  thought,  but  evi- 
dently aloud ;  "I  am  the  Fool  of  Superstition.  I  am  Fenella 
Stanley's  Fool,  and  Sinfi  Lovell's  Fool,  and  Philip  Aylwin's 
Fool,  who  went  and  averted  a  curse  from  one  of  the  heads 
resting  down  here,  averted  a  curse  by  burying  a  jewel  in  a 
dead  man's  tomb." 

"Not  in  this  cemetery,  so  none  o'  your  gammon,"  said 
the  gravedigger  who  had  overheard  me.  "The  on'y  people 
as  is  fools  enough  to  bury  jewels  Avith  dead  bodies  is  the 
Gypsies,  and  they  take  precious  good  care,  as  I  know,  to 
keep  it  mum  ivhcre  they  bury  'em.  There's  bin  as  much 
diggin'  for  them  thousand  guineas  as  was  buried  with  Jerry 
Chilcott  in  Foxleigh  parish,  where  I  was  born,  as  would 
more  nor  pay  for  emptying  a  gold  mine ;  but  I  never  heard 
o'  Christian  folk  a-buryin'  jewels.    But  who  are  you  ?" 

I  felt  a  hand  upon  my  shoulder,  and  looking  round,  I 
foimd  Sinfi  by  my  side. 

"Docs  he  belong  to  you,  my  gal  ?" 

"Yis,"  said  Sinfi,  with  a  strange,  deep  ring  in  her  rich 
contralto  voice.  "Yis,  he  belong  to  me  now — leastways 
he's  my  pal  now — whatever  comes  on  it." 

"Then  take  him  away,  my  wench.  What's  tlie  matter 
with  him  ?  The  old  complaint.  I  s'posc,"  he  added,  lifting 
his  hand  to  his  mouth  as  though  drinking  from  a  glass. 

Sinfi  gently  put  out  her  hand  and  brushed  the  man  aside. 

"I've  bin  a-followin'  on  you  all  the  way,  brother,"  said 
Sinii,  as  we  moved  out  of  the  cemetery,  "for  yom*  looks 
skeared  me  a  bit.    Let's  go  away  from  this  place." 


324  Aylwin 

"But  whither,  Sinfi  ?  I  have  no  friend  but  you ;  I  have  no 
home." 

"No  home,  brother?  The  kairengros*  has  got  about 
everythink,  'cept  the  sky  an'  the  wind,  an'  you're  one  o'  the 
the  richest  kairengros  on  'em  all — leastways  so  I  wur  told 
t'other  day  in  Kingston  Vale.  It's  the  Romanies,  brother, 
as  ain't  got  no  home,  'cept  the  sky  an'  the  wind.  How- 
sumever,  that's  nuther  here  nor  there;  we'll  jist  go  to  the 
woman  they  told  me  on,  an'  if  there's  any  truth  to  be  torn 
out  on  her,  out  it'll  ha'  to  come,  if  I  ha'  to  tear  out  her 
windpipe  with  it." 

We  took  a  cab  and  were  soon  in  Primrose  Court. 

The  front  door  was  wide  open — fastened  back.  Entering 
the  narrow  common  passage,  we  rapped  at  a  dingy  inner 
door.  It  was  opened  by  a  pretty  girl,  whose  thick  chestnut 
hair  and  eyes  to  match  contrasted  richly  with  the  dress  she 
wore — a  dirty  black  dress,  with  great  patches  of  lining 
bursting  through  holes  like  a  whity-brown  froth. 

"Meg  Gudgeon  ?"  said  the  girl  in  answer  to  our  inquiries ; 
and  at  first  she  looked  at  us  rather  suspiciously,  "upstairs, 
she's  very  bad — like  to  die — I'm  a-seein'  arter  'er.  Better 
let  'er  alone ;  she  bites  when  she's  in  'er  tantrums." 

"We's  friends  o'  hern,"  said  Sinfi,  whose  appearance  and 
decisive  voice  seemed  to  reassure  the  girl. 

"Oh,  if  you're  friends  that's  different,"  said  she.  "Meg's 
gone  ofif  'er  'ead ;  thinks  the  p'leace  in  plain  clothes  are  after 
'er." 

We  went  up  the  stairs.  The  girl  followed  us.  When  we 
reached  a  low  door,  Sinfi  proposed  that  she  should  remain 
outside  on  the  landing,  but  within  ear-shot,  as  "the  sight  o' 
both  on  us,  all  of  a  suddent,  might  make  the  poor  body 
all  of  a  dither  if  she  was  very  ill." 

The  girl  then  opened  the  door  and  went  in.  I  heard  the 
woman's  voice  say  in  answer  to  her : 

"Friend?  Who  is  it?  Are  you  sure.  Poll,  it  ain't  a 
copper  in  plain  clothes  come  about  that  gal?" 

The  girl  came  out,  and  signalling  me  to  enter,  went  leis- 
urely down-stairs.  Leaving  Sinfi  outside  on  the  landing,  I 
entered  the  room.  There,  on  a  sort  of  truckle-bed  in  one 
corner,  I  saw  the  woman.  She  slowly  raised  herself  up  on 
her  elbows  to  stare  at  me.  I  took  for  granted  that  she 
would  recognise  me  at  once;  but  either  because  she  was 
*The  roof-dwellers. 


The  Revolving  Cage  of  Circumstance   325 

in  drink  when  I  saw  her  last,  or  because  she  had  got  the 
idea  of  a  policeman  in  plain  clothes,  she  did  not  seem  to 
know  me.  Then  a  look  of  dire  alarm  broke  over  her  face 
and  she  said : 

"P'leaceman,  I'm  as  hinicent  about  that  air  gal  as  a  new- 
born babe." 

"Mrs.  Gudgeon,"  I  said,  "I  only  want  you  to  tell  a  friend 
of  mine  about  your  daughter." 

"Oh,  yis !  a  friend  o'  yourn !  Another  or  two  on  ye  in 
plain  clothes  behind  the  door,  I  dessay.  An'  pray  who  said 
the  gal  wur  my  darter  ?  What  for  do  you  want  to  put  words 
into  the  mouth  of  a  hinicent  dyin'  woman  ?  I  corned  by  'er 
'onest  enough.  The  pore  half-starved  thing  came  up  to 
me  in  Llanbeblig  churchyard." 

"Llanbeblig  churchyard?"  I  exclaimed,  drawing  close  up 
to  the  bed.  "How  came  you  in  Llanbeblig  churchyard?" 
But  then  I  remembered  that,  according  to  her  own  story, 
she  had  married  a  Welshman. 

"How  did  I  come  in  Llanbeblig  churchyard?"  said  the 
woman  in  a  tone  in  which  irony  and  fear  were  strangely 
mingled.  "Well,  p'leaceman,  I  don't  mean  to  be  sarcy ;  but 
seein'  as  all  my  pore  dear  'usband's  kith  and  kin  o'  the 
name  of  Goodjohn  was  buried  in  Llanbeblig  churchyard, 
p'raps  you'll  be  kind  enough  to  let  me  go  there  sometimes, 
an'  p'raps  be  buried  there  when  my  time  comes." 

"But  what  took  you  there?"  I  said. 

"What  took  me  to  Llanbeblig  churchyard?"  exclaimed 
the  woman,  whose  natural  dogged  courage  seemed  to  be 
returning  to  her.  "What  made  me  leave  every  fardin'  I 
had  in  the  world  with  Poll  Onion,  when  we  ommust  wanted 
bread,  an'  go  to  Carnarvon  on  Shanks's  pony?  I  sha'n't  tell 
ye.  I  comed  by  the  gal  'onest  enough,  an'  she  never  comed 
to  no  'arm  through  me,  less  mendin'  'er  does  for  'er,  and 
bringin'  'er  to  London,  and  bein'  a  mother  to  her,  an'  givin' 
'er  a  few  baskets  an'  matches  to  sell  is  a-doin'  'er  any  'arm. 
An'  as  to  beggin'  she  zvould  beg,  she  loved  to  beg  an'  say 
texes." 

"Old  kidnapper!"  I  cried,  maddened  by  the  visions  that 
came  upon  me.  "How  do  I  know  that  she  came  to  no  harm 
with  a  wretch  like  you?" 

The  woman  shrank  back  upon  the  pillows  in  a  revival  of 
her  terror.  "She  never  comed  to  no  harm,  p'leaceman.  No, 
no,  she  never  comed  to  no  harm  through  me.    Ld  a  darter 


326  Aylwin 

once  o'  my  own,  Jenny  Gudgeon  by  name — p'raps  you 
know'd  'er,  most  o'  the  coppers  did — as  was  brought  up  by 
my  sister  by  marriage  at  Carnarvon,  an'  I  sent  for  'er  to 
London,  I  did,  p'leaceman — God  forgi'e  me — and  she  went 
wrong  all  through  me  bein'  a  drinkin'  woman  and  not 
seein'  arter  'er,  just  as  my  son  Bob  tookt  to  drink,  through 
me  bein'  a  drinkin'  woman  an'  not  seein'  arter  him.  She 
tookt  and  went  from  bad  to  wuss,  bad  to  wuss ;  it's  my  belief 
as  it's  alius  starvation  as  drives  'em  to  it ;  an'  when  she  wur 
a-dyin'  gal,  she  sez  to  me,  'Mother,'  sez  she,  'I've  got  the 
smell  o'  Welsh  vi'lets  on  me  ag'in :  I  wants  to  be  buried 
in  Llanbeblig  churchyard,  among  the  Welsh  child'n  an' 
maids,  mother.  I  wants  to  feel  the  snowdrops,  an'  smell  the 
vi'lets,  an'  the  primroses,  a-growin'  over  my  'ead,'  sez  she; 
'but  that  can't  never  be,  mother,'  sez  she,  a-sobbin'  fit  to 
bust ;  'never,  never,  for  such  as  me,'  sez  she.  An'  I  know'd 
what  she  ment,  though  she  never  once  blamed  me,  an'  'er 
words  stuck  in  my  gizzard  like  a  thorn,  p'leaceman." 

"But  what  has  all  this  to  do  with  the  girl  you  kidnapped  ?" 
"Ain't  I  a-tellin'  on  ye  as  fast  as  I  can?  When  my  pore 
gal  dropped  off  to  sleep,  I  sez  to  Polly  Onion,  'Poll,'  I  sez, 
'to-morrow  mornin'  111  pop  everythink  as  ain't  popped 
a'ready,  and  I'll  leave  you  the  money  to  see  arter  'er,  and 
I'll  start  for  Carnarvon  on  Shanks's  pony.  I  knows  a  good 
many  on  the  roads,'  sez  I,  'as  won't  let  Jokin'  j\Ieg  want 
for  a  crust  and  a  sup,  and  when  I  gits  to  Carnarvon  I'll  ax 
'er  aunt  to  bury  'er  (she  sells  lish,  'er  aunt  does,'  sez  I, 
'and  she's  got  a  pot  o'  money),  an'  then  I'll  see  the  parson 
or  the  sexton  or  somebody,'  sez  I,  'an'  I'll  tell  'em  I've  got 
a  darter  in  London  as  is  goin'  to  die,  a  Carnarvon  gal  by 
family,  an'  I'll  tell  'im  she  ain't  never  bin  married,  an'  then 
they'll  bury  'er  where  she  can  smell  the  primroses  and  the 
vi'lets.'  That's  what  I  sez  to  Poll  Onion,  an'  then  Poll 
she  begins  to  pipe,  an'  sez,  'Oh  Meg,  Meg,  ain't  I  a  Carnar- 
von gal  too?  The  likes  o'  us  ain't  a-goin'  to  grow  no 
vi'lets  an'  snowdrops  in  Llanbeblig  churchyard.'  An'  I  sez 
to  her,  'What  a  d — d  fool  you  are,  Poll !  You  never  'adn't 
a  gal  as  went  wrong  through  you  a-drinkin',  else  you'd 
never  say  that.  If  the  parson  sez  to  me,  "Is  your  darter  a 
vargin-maid ?"  d'ye  think  I  shall  say,  "Oh  no,  parson"?  I'll 
swear  she  is  a  vargin-maid  on  all  the  Bibles  in  all  the 
rhurches  in  Wales.'  'Hiat's  jis'  what  1  sez  to  Polly  Onion. 
God  forgi'e  nic.    An'  Poll  sez,  'The  parson'll  be  sure  to  send 


The  Revolving  Cage  of  Circumstance   327 

you  to  hell,  Meg,  if  you  do  that  air.'  An'  I  sez,  'So  he  may, 
then,  but  I  shall  do  it,  no  fear.'  That's  what  I  sez  to  Poll 
Onion  (she's  downstairs  at  this  werry  moment  a  warmin' 
me  a  drop  o'  beer) ;  it  was  'er  as  showed  you  upstairs,  cuss 
'er  for  a  fool ;  an'  she  can  tell  you  the  same  thing  as  I'm 
a-tellin'  on  you." 

"But  what  about  her  you  kidnapped?  Tell  me  all  about 
it,  or  it  will  be  worse  for  you." 

"Ain't  I  a-tellin'  you  as  fast  as  I  can  ?  Ofif  to  Carnarvon 
I  goes,  an'  every  futt  o'  the  way  I  walks — Lor'  bless  your 
soul,  there  worn't  a  better  pair  o'  pins  nowheres  than  Meg 
Gudgeon's  then,  afore  the  water  got  in  'em  and  bust  'em ; 
and  I  got  to  Llanbeblig  churchyard  early  one  mornin',  an' 
there  I  seed  the  poor  half-sharp  gal.  So  you  see  I  comed 
by  her  'onest  enough,  p'leaceman,  though  she  worn't 
ezzackly  my  own  darter." 

"Well,  well,"  I  said ;  "go  on." 

"Yes,  it's  all  very  well  to  say  'go  on,'  p'leaceman ;  but  if 
you'd  got  as  much  water  in  your  legs  as  I've  got  in  mine, 
an'  if  you'd  got  no  more  wind  in  your  bellows  than  I've 
got  in  mine,  you'd  find  it  none  so  easy  to  go  on." 

"What  was  she  doing  in  the  churchyard?" 

"Well,  p'leaceman,  I'm  tellin'  you  the  truth,  s'elp  me 
Bob !  I  was  a-lookin'  over  the  graves  to  see  if  I  could  find 
a  nice  comfortable  place  for  my  pore  gal,  an'  all  at  once  I 
heered  a  kind  o'  sobbin'  as  would  a'  made  me  die  o'  fright 
if  it  'adn't  a'  bin  broad  daylight,  an'  then  I  see  a  gal  a-layin' 
flat  on  a  grave  an'  cryin',  an'  when  I  got  up  to  her  I  seed 
as  she  wur  covered  with  mud,  an'  I  seed  as  she  wur 
a-starvin'." 

"Good  God,  woman,  you  arc  lying!  you  are  lying!" 

"No,  I  ain't  a-lyin'.  She  tookt  to  me  the  moment  she 
clapped  eyes  on  me ;  most  people  does,  and  them  as  don't 
ought,  an'  she  got  up  an'  put  her  arms  round  my  neck,  and 
she  called  me  'Knocker.'  " 

"Called  you  what?" 

"Ain't  I  a-tellin'  you?  She  called  me  'Knocker';  and 
that's  the  very  name  as  she  alius  called  me  up  to  the  day  of 
her  death,  pore  dear!  I  tried  to  make  'er  come  along  o'  me, 
an'  she  wouldn't  stir,  an'  so  1  left  'er,  meanin'  to  go  back ; 
but  when  I  got  to  my  sister's  by  niarriag'e,  there  was  a 
li'tter  for  me  and  it  wur  from  Polly  Onion,  a-sayin'  as  mv 
pore  Jenny  died  the  same  tlay  as  I  left  London,  a-sayin', 


328  Aylwin 

'Mother,  vi'lets,  vi'lets ;  mother,  vi'lets,  vi'lets !'  an'  was 
buried  by  the  parish.  An'  that  upset  me,  p'leaceman,  an' 
made  me  swoownd,  an'  when  I  comed  to,  I  couldn't  hear 
nothink  only  my  pore  Jenny's  voice  a-sobbin'  on  the  wind, 
'Mother,  vi'lets,  vi'lets;  mother,  vi'lets,  vi'lets!'  an  that  sent 
me  off  my  'ead  a  bit,  and  I  ran  out  o'  the  house,  an' 
there  was  Jenny's  voice  a-goin'  on  before  me  a-sobbin', 
'Mother,  vi'lets,  vi'lets ;  mother,  vi'lets,  vi'lets  !'  an'  it  seemed 
to  lead  me  back  to  the  churchyard ;  an'  lo !  and  be'old,  there 
was  the  pore  half-starved  creatur'  a-settin'  there  jist  as  I'd 
left  'er,  an'  I  sez,  'God  bless  you,  my  gal,  you're  a-starvin' !' 
an'  she  jumped  up,  an'  she  comed  an'  throwed  'er  arms 
round  my  waist,  an'  there  we  stood  both  on  us  a-cryin'  to- 
gither,  an'  then  I  runned  back  into  Carnarvon,  an'  fetched 
'er  some  grub,  an'  she  tucked  into  the  grub. — But  hullo ! 
p'leaceman,  what's  up  now?  What  the  devil  are  you 
a-squeedgin'  my  'and  like  that  for?  Are  you  a-goin'  to  kiss 
it  ?  It  ain't  none  so  clean,  p'leaceman.  You're  the  rummest 
copper  in  plain  clothes  ever  I  seed  in  all  my  born  days. 
Fust  you  seem  as  if  you  want  to  bite  me,  you  looks  so 
savage,  an'  then  you  looks  as  if  you  wants  to  kiss  me ;  you'll 
make  me  laugh,  I  know  you  will,  an'  that'll  make  me  cough. 
— Hi !  Poll  Onion,  come  'ere.  Bring  my  best  lookin'-glass 
out  o'  my  boudore,  an'  let  me  look  at  my  old  chops,  for 
I'm  blowed  if  there  ain't  a  copper  in  plain  clothes  this  time 
as  is  fell  'ead  over  ears  in  love  with  me,  jist  as  the  young 
swell  did  at  the  studero." 

"Go  on,  Mrs.  Gudgeon,"  I  said;  "go  on.  She  ate  the 
food?" 

"Oh,  didn't  she  jist !  And  the  pore  half-sharp  thing  took 
to  me,  an'  I  took  to  she,  an'  I  thinks  to  m3'self,  'She's  a 
purty  gal.  if  she's  ever  so  stupid,  an'  she'll  get  'er  livin' 
a-sellin'  flowers  o'  fine  days,  and  a-doin'  the  rainy-night 
dodge  with  baskets  when  it's  wet' ;  and  so  I  took  'er  in,  an' 
in  the  street  she'd  all  of  a  suddent  bust  out  a-singin'  songs 
about  Snowdon  an'  sich  like,  just  as  if  she  was  a-singin' 
in  a  dream,  and  folk  used  to  like  to  hear  her  an'  gev  her 
money ;  an'  I  was  a  good  mother  to  'er,  I  was,  an'  them  as 
sez  I  worn't  is  cussed  liars." 

"And  she  never  came  to  any  harm?"  I  said,  holding  the 
great  muscular  hands  between  my  two  palms,  unwilling  to 
let  them  go.    "She  never  came  to  any  harm  ?" 

"Ain't  I  said  so  more  nor  wunst?    I  swore  on  the  Bible 


The  Revolving  Cage  of  Circumstance   329 

— tliere's  the  very  Bible,  under  the  match-box,  agin  the 
winder — on  that  very  Bible  I  swore  as  my  pore  Jenny 
brought  from  Wales,  and  as  I've  never  popped  yit — that 
this  pore  half-sharp  gal  should  never  go  wrong  through 
me;  an'  then,  arter  I  swore  that,  my  poor  Jenny  let  me 
alone,  an'  I  never  'card  'er  v'ice  no  more  a-cryin',  'Mother, 
vi'lets,  vi'lets ;  mother,  vilets,  vilets  !'  An'  many's  the  chap 
as  'as  come  leerin'  arter  'er  as  I've  sent  away  with  a  flea 
in  'is  ear.  Cuss  'em  all;  they's  all  bad  alike  about  purty 
gals,  men  is.  She's  never  comed  to  no  wrong  through  nic. 
Didn't  1  ammost  kill  a  real  sailor  capting  when  I  used  to 
live  in  the  East  End  'cause  he  tried  to  meddle  with  'er? 
And  worn't  that  the  reason  why  I  left  my  'um  close  to 
Radcliffe  Highway  and  comed  here?  Them  as  killed  'er 
wur  the  cussed  lot  in  the  studeros.  I'm  a  dyin'  woman ;  I'm 
as  hinicent  as  a  new-born  babe.  An'  there  ain't  nothink 
o'  'ern  in  this  room  on'y  a  pair  o'  ole  shoes  an'  a  few  rags 
in  that  ole  trunk  under  the  winder." 

I  went  to  the  trunk  and  raised  the  lid.  The  tattered, 
stained  remains  of  the  very  dress  she  wore  when  I  last  saw 
her  in  the  mist  on  Snowdon !  But  what  else  ?  Pushed 
into  an  old  worn  shoe,  which  with  its  fellow  lay  tossed 
among  the  ragged  clothes,  was  a  brown  stained  letter.  I 
took  it  out.  It  was  addressed  to  "Miss  Winifred  Wynne  at 
Mrs.  Davies's."  Part  of  the  envelope  was  torn  away.  It 
bore  the  Graylingham  post-mark,  and  its  superscription 
was  in  a  hand  which  I  did  not  recognise,  and  yet  it  was  a 
hand  which  seemed  half-familiar  to  me.  I  opened  it;  I 
read  a  line  or  two  before  I  fully  realised  what  it  was — the 
letter,  full  of  childish  prattle,  which  I  had  written  to  Wini- 
fred when  I  was  a  little  boy — the  letter  which  her  aunt 
had  forbidden  her  to  answer. 

I  forgot  where  I  was.  I  forgot  that  Sinfi  w'as  standing 
outside  the  door,  till  I  heard  the  woman's  voice  exclaim- 
ing :  "What  do  you  want  to  set  on  my  bed  an'  look  at  me 
like  that  for? — you  ain't  no  p'leaceman  in  plain  clothes,  so 
none  o'  your  larks.  Git  off  o'  my  bed,  will  ye?  You'll  be 
a-settin'  on  my  bad  leg  an'  a-bustin'  on  it  in  a  minit.  Git 
ofif  my  bed,  else  look  another  way;  them  eyes  o'  yourn 
skear  me." 

I  was  sitting  on  the  side  of  her  bed  and  looking  into  her 
face.  "Where  did  you  get  this  ?"I  said,  holding  out  the  letter. 


330  Ay]  win 

"You  skears  mc,  a-lookin'  like  that,"'  said  she.  "1  coined 
by  it  'onest.  One  day  when  she  was  asleep,  I  was  turnin' 
over  her  clothes  to  see  how  much  longer  they  would  hold 
together,  when  I  feels  a  somethink  'ard  sewed  up  in  the 
breast ;  I  rips  it  open,  and  it  was  that  letter.  I  didn't  put  it 
back  in  the  frock  ag'in,  'cause  I  thought  it  might  be  useful 
some  day  in  findin'  out  who  she  was.  She  never  missed  it. 
I  don't  think  she'd  'ave  missed  anythink,  she  wur  so  on- 
common  silly.    You  ain't  a-goin'  to  pocket  it,  air  you  ?" 

I  had  put  the  letter  in  my  pocket,  and  had  seized  the 
shoes  and  was  going  out  of  the  room ;  but  I  stopped,  took 
a  sovereign  from  my  purse,  placed  it  in  an  envelope  bearing 
my  own  address  which  I  chanced  to  find  in  my  pocket,  and, 
putting  it  into  her  hand,  I  said,  "Here  is  my  address  and 
here  is  a  sovereign.  I  will  tell  your  friend  below  to  come 
for  me  or  send  whenever  you  need  assistance."  The  woman 
clutched  at  the  money  with  greed,  and  I  left  the  room, 
signalling  to  Sinfi  (who  stood  on  the  landing,  pale  and 
deeply  moved)  to  follow  me  downstairs.  When  we  reached 
the  wretched  room  on  the  ground-floor  we  found  the  girl 
hanging  some  wet  rags  on  lines  that  were  stretched  from 
wall  to  wall. 

"What  is  your  name?"  I  said. 

"Polly  Unwin,"  replied  she,  turning  round  with  a  piece 
of  damp  linen  in  her  hand. 

"And  what  are  you  ?" 

"What  am  I?" 

"I  mean  what  do  you  do  for  a  living?" 

"What  do  I  do  for  a  living?"  she  said.  "All  kinds  of 
things — help  the  men  at  the  barrows  in  the  New  Cut,  sell 
flowers,  do  anything  that  comes  in  my  way." 

"Never  mind  what  she  does  for  a  livin',  brother,"  said 
Sinfi ;  "give  her  a  gold  balanser  or  two,  and  tell  her  to  see 
arter  the  woman." 

"Here  is  some  money,"  I  said  to  the  girl.  "See  that  Mrs. 
Gudgeon  up-stairs  wants  for  nothing.  Is  that  story  of  hers 
true  about  her  daughter  and  Llanbeblig  churchyard?" 

"That's  true  enough,  though  she's  a  wunner  at  a  lie ; 
that's  true  enough." 

But  as  I  spoke  I  heard  a  noise  like  the  laugh  or  the  shriek 
of  a  maniac.    It  seemed  to  come  from  upstairs. 

"She's  a-larfin'  ag'in,"  said  the  girl.  "It's  a  very  wicked 
larf,  sir,  ain't  it?    But  there's  wuss  'uns  nor  Meg  Gudgeon 


The  Revolving  Cage  of  Circumstance   331 

for  all  'cr  wicked  larf,  as  1  knows.  Many  a  time  she's  kep" 
nic  from  starvin'.  I  mns'  run  up  an'  see  'er.  She'll  kill  her- 
self a-larfin'  yit." 

The  girl  hurried  up-stairs  and  I  followed  her,  leaving 
Sinfi  below.  I  re-entered  the  bed-room.  There  was  the 
woman,  her  face  buried  in  the  pillow,  rocking  and  rolling 
her  body  half  round  with  the  regularity  of  a  pendulum. 
Betw^een  the  peals  of  half-smothered  hysterical  laughter  that 
came  from  her,  I  could  hear  her  say : 

''Dear  Lord  Jesus,  don't  forget  to  lore  dear  Henry  wJio  can't 
git  up  the  gangways  zvitlunit  me." 

The  words  seemed  to  fall  upon  my  heart  like  a  rain  of 
molten  metal  dropping  from  the  merciless  and  mocking 
skies.  But  I  had  ceased  to  wonder  at  the  cruelty  of  Fate. 
The  girl  went  to  her  and  shook  her  angrily.  This  seemed 
to  allay  her  hysterics,  for  she  rolled  round  upon  her  back 
and  stared  at  us.  Then  she  looked  at  the  envelope  clutched 
in  her  hand,  and  read  out  the  address, 

"Henry,  Henry,  tienry  Halywin,  Eskeuer!  An'  I  tookt 
'im  for  a  copper  in  plain  clothes  all  the  w'hile !  Henry, 
Henry,  Henry  Halywin,  Eskeuer!  I  shall  die  a-lariin',  I 
know  I  shall !  I  shall  die  a-larfin',  I  know  I  shall !  Poll ! 
don't  you  mind  me  a-tellin'  you  about  my  pore  darter 
Winifred — for  my  darter  she  zvas,  as  Fll  swear  afore  all  the 
beaks  in  London — don't  you  mind  me  a-sayin'  that  if  she 
wouldn't  talk  when  she  wur  awake,  she  could  mag  away 
fast  enough  when  she  wur  asleep ;  an'  it  were  alius  the  same 
mag  about  dear  little  Henry,  an'  dear  Henry  Halywin  as 
couldn't  git  up  the  gangways  without  'er.  Well,  pore  dear 
Henry  was  'er  swcct'airt,  an'  this  is  the  chap,  an'  if  my 
eyes  ain't  stun  blind,  the  werry  chap  out  o'  the  cussed  stu- 
deros  as  killed  'er,  pore  dear,  an'  as  is  a-skearin'  me  away 
from  my  beautiful  'um  in  Primrose  Court ;  an'  'ere  wur 
I  a-talkin'  to  him  all  of  a  muck  sweat,  thinking  he  wur  a 
copper  in  plain  clothes !" 

At  this  moment  Sinfi  entered  the  room.  She  came  up  to 
me,  and  laying  her  hand  upon  my  shoulder  she  said  :  "Come 
away,  brother,  this  is  cruel  hard  for  you  to  bear.  It's  our 
poor  sister  Winifred  as  is  dead,  and  it  ain't  nobody  else." 

The  efTect  of  Sinfi's  appearance  and  of  her  words  upon  the 
woman  was  like  that  of  an  electric  shock.  She  sat  up  in 
her  bed  open-mouthed,  staring  from  Sinfi  to  me,  and  from 
me  to  Sinfi. 


3  32  Aylwin 

"So  my  darter  Winifred's  your  sister  now,  is  she?"  (turn- 
ing to  me).  "A  few  minutes  ago  she  was  your  sweet'airt : 
and  now  she  seems  to  ha'  bin  your  sister.  And  she  was 
your  sister,  too,  was  she?"  (turning  to  Sinfi).  "Well,  all  I 
know  is,  that  she  was  my  darter,  Winifred  Gudgeon,  as  is 
dead,  and  buried  in  the  New  North  Cemetery,  pore  dear; 
and  yet  she  was  sister  to  both  on  ye !" 

She  then  buried  her  face  again  in  the  pillows  and  re- 
sumed the  rocking  movement,  shrieking  between  her  peals 
of  laughter :  "Well,  if  I'm  the  mother  of  a  six-fut  Gypsy 
gal  and  a  black-eyed  chap  as  seems  jest  at  ween  a  Gypsy  and 
a  Christian,  I  never  knowed  that  afore.  No,  I  never  knowed 
that  afore !  I  alius  said  I  should  die  a-larfin',  and  so  I  shall ; 
I'm  a-dyin'  now — ha!  ha!  ha!" 

She  fell  back  upon  the  pillow,  exhausted  by  her  own 
cruel  merriment. 

"She  always  said  she'd  die  a-larfm',  an'  she  will,  too — 
more  nor  I  shall  ever  do,"  said  the  girl. 

"Did  you  notice  what  she  said  about  Winnie  a-callin'  her 
Knocker?"  said  Sinii. 

"Yes,  and  couldn't  understand  it." 

"/  know  what  it  meant.  Winnie  knowed  all  about  the 
Knockers  of  Snowdon,  the  dwarfs  o'  the  copper  mine,  and 
this  woman,  bein'  so  thick  and  short,  must  look  ezackly 
like  a  Knocker,  I  should  say,  if  you  could  see  one." 

I  said  to  the  .girl,  "Was  she  really  kind  to — to " 

"To  her  you  were  asking  about, — the  Essex  Street 
Beauty?  I  should  think  she  just  was.  She's  a  drinker,  is 
poor  Meg,  and  drinking  in  Primrose  Court  means  starva- 
tion. Meg  and  the  Beauty  were  often  short  enough  of 
grub,  but,  drunk  or  sober,  Meg  would  never  touch  a 
mouthful  till  the  Beauty  had  had  her  fill.  I  noticed  it  many 
a  time — not  a  mouthful.  When  Meg  was  obliged  to  send 
her  into  the  streets  to  sell  things  she  was  always  afraid 
that  the  Beauty  might  come  to  harm  through  the  tofifs  and 
the  chaps.  The  tofifs  were  the  worst  looking  after  her — as 
they  mostly  are — so  I  was  always  watching  her  in  the  day- 
time, and  at  night  Meg  was  always  watching  her,  and  that 
was  what  made  me  know  your  face,  as  soon  as  ever  I  clapt 
eyes  on  it." 

"W'hy,  what  do  you  mean?" 

"Well,  one  rainy  night  when  I  was  standing  by  the  thea- 
tre door,  I  heard  a  tofif  ask  a  policeman  about  the  Essex 


The  Revolving  Cage  of  Circumstance    333 

Street  Beauty,  and  I  thought  I  knew  what  that  meant 
very  well.  So  I  ran  off  to  find  Meg.  I  had  seen  her  watch- 
ing the  Beauty  all  the  time.  But  lo  and  behold !  Meg  was 
gone  and  the  Beauty,  too.  So  I  run  across  here,  and  found 
Meg  and  the  Beauty  getting  their  supper  as  quiet  as  possi- 
ble. Meg  had  heard  the  toff  talking  to  the  policeman — 
though  I  didn't  know  she  was  standing  so  near — and 
whisked  her  off  and  away  as  quick  as  lightning." 

'That  was  I,"  I  said.    "God !  God !  If  I  had  only  known !" 

"There's  the  same  look  now  on  your  face  as  there  was 
then,  and  I  should  know  it  among  ten  thousand." 

"Polly  Onion,"  I  said,  "there  is  my  address,  and  if  ever 
you  want  a  friend,  and  if  you  are  in  trouble,  you  will  know 
where  to  find  assistance,"  and  I  gave  her  another  sovereign. 

"You're  a  good  sort,"  said  she,  "and  no  mistake." 

"Good-bye,"  I  said,  shaking  her  hand.  "See  well  after 
Mrs.  Gudgeon." 

"All  right,"  said  she,  and  a  smile  broke  over  her  face.  "I 
think  I  ought  to  tell  you  now,"  she  continued,  "that  Meg's 
no  more  ill  of  dropsy  than  I  am ;  she  could  walk  twenty 
miles  off  the  reel ;  there  ain't  a  bullock  in  England  half  as 
strong  as  Meg;  she's  shamming." 

"Shamming,  but  why?" 

"Well,  she  ain't  drunk ;  ever  since  the  Beauty  died  she's 
never  touched  a  drop  o'  gin.  But  she's  turned  quite  cranky. 
She's  got  it  into  her  head  that  the  relations  of  the  Beauty 
are  going  to  send  her  to  prison  for  kidnapping ;  and  she 
thinks  that  every  one  that  comes  near  her  is  a  policeman  in 
plain  clothes.  She's  just  lying  in  bed  to  keep  herself  out 
of  the  way  till  she  starts." 

"Where's  she  going,  then?" 

"She  talks  about  going  to  see  after  her  son  Bob  in  the 
country;  her  husband  is  a  Welshman.  He's  over  the 
water." 

"Did  you  say  she  had  given  up  drinking?"  I  asked. 

"Yes ;  she  seemed  to  dote  on  the  Beauty,  and  when  the 
Beauty  died  she  said,  'My  darter  went  wrong  through  me 
drinkin',  and  my  son  Bob  went  wrong  through  me  drink- 
in';  and  I  feel  somehow  that  it  wos  through  my  drinkin' 
that  I  lost  the  Beauty;  and  never  will  you  find  me  touch 
another  drop  o'  gin.  Poll.  Beer  I  ain't  fond  on,  and  it  'ud 
take  a  rare  swill  o'  beer  to  get  up  as  far  as  Meg  Gudgeon's 
head.' " 


334  Aylwin 

"There  ain't  much  fault  to  be  found  with  a  woman  like 
Meg  Gudgeon,"  said  Sinfi.  "Was  the  Beauty  fond  o'  her? 
She  ought  to  ha'  bin." 

"She  used  to  call  her  Knocker,"  said  the  girl,  "She 
seemed  very  fond  of  her  when  they  were  together,  but 
seemed  to  forget  her  as  soon  as  they  were  apart." 

Sinfi  and  I  then  left  the  house. 

In  Great  Queen  Street  she  took  my  hand  as  if  to  bid 
me  good-bye.  But  she  stood  and  gazed  at  me  wistfully, 
and  I  gazed  at  her.     At  last  she  said  : 

"An'  now,  brother,  we'll  jist  go  across  to  Kingston  Vale, 
an'  see  my  daddy,  an'  set  your  livin'-waggin  to  rights." 

"Then,  Sinfi,"  said  I,  "you  and  I  are  one  more " 

I  stopped  and  looked  at  her.  The  fearless  young  Ama- 
zon and  seeress,  who  kept  a  large  family  of  Kaulo  Camloes 
in  awe,  was  supposed  to  have  conquered  the  feminine  weak- 
ness of  tears ;  but  she  had  not.  There  was  a  chink  in  the 
Amazon's  armour,  and  I  had  found  it. 

"Yis,"  said  she,  nodding  her  head  and  smiling.  "You 
an'  me's  right  pals  ag'in." 

As  we  were  going  I  told  her  how  I  had  replaced  the  jewel 
in  the  tomb. 

"I  know'd  you  would  do  it.  Yis,  I  heerd  you  telling  the 
gravedigger  the  same  thing." 

"And  yet,"  said  I,  bitterly,  "in  spite  of  that  and  in  spite  of 
the  Golden  Hand,  she  is  dead." 

Sinfi  stood  silently  looking  at  me  now.  Even  her  pro- 
digious faith  seemed  conquered. 


IV. 

For  a  few  days  I  paced  with  Sinfi  over  Wimbledon  Com- 
mon and  Richmond  Park.  The  weather  was  now  unusually 
brilliant  for  the  time  of  year.  Sinfi  would  walk  silently  by 
my  side. 

But  I  could  not  rest  with  the  Gypsies.  I  must  be  alone. 
Soon  I  left  the  camp  and  returned  to  London,  where  I  took 
a  suite  of  rooms  in  a  house  not  far  from  Eaton  Square — 
though  to  me  London  was  a  huge  meaningless  maze  of 
houses    clustered    around    Primrose    Court — that    horrid, 


The  Revolving  Cage  of  Circumstance   335 

fascinating,  intolerable  core  of  pain.  Into  my  lungs  poured 
the  hateful  atmosphere  of  the  city  where  Winifred  had  per- 
ished ;  poured  hot  and  stifling  as  sand-blasts  of  the  desert. 
Impossible  to  stay  there ! — for  the  pavement  seemed 
actually  to  scorch  my  feet,  like  the  floor  of  a  fiery  furnace. 
To  me  the  sun  above  was  but  the  hideous  eye  of  Circum- 
stance which  had  stared  down  pitilessly  on  that  bare  head 
of  hers,  and  blistered  those  feet. 

The  lamps  at  night  seemed  twinkling,  blinking  in  a  cal- 
lous consciousness  of  my  tragedy — my  monstrous  tragedy 
of  real  life,  the  like  of  which  no  poet  dare  imagine.  But 
what  aroused  my  wrath  to  an  unbearable  pitch — what  de- 
termined me  to  leave  London  at  once — was  the  sight  of 
the  unsympathetic  faces  in  the  streets.  Though  sympathy 
could  have  given  me  no  comfort,  the  myriad  unsympa- 
thetic eyes  of  London  infuriated  me. 

"Died  in  beggar's  rags — died  in  a  hovel !"  I  muttered 
with  rage  as  the  equipages  and  coarse  splendours  of  the 
West  End  rolled  insolently  by.  "Died  in  a  hovel ! — and 
this  London,  this  vast,  ridiculous,  swarming  human  ant 
hill,  whose  millions  of  paltry  humdrum  lives  were  not  worth 
one  breath  from  those  lips — this  London  spurned  her,  left 
her  to  perish  alone  in  her  sc{ualor  and  misery." 

Cyri  and  Wilderspin  had  returned  to  the  Continent. 
D'Arcy  was  still  away. 

I  made  application  to  the  Home  Secretary  to  have  the 
pauper  grave  opened.  On  the  ground  that  I  was  "not  a 
relative  of  the  deceased,"  the  officials  refused  to  institute 
even  preliminary  inquiries. 

During  this  time  no  news  of  Mrs.  Gudgeon  had  come  to 
me  through  Polly  Onion,  and  I  determined  to  go  to  Prim- 
rose Court  and  see  what  had  become  of  her. 

When  I  reached  Primrose  Court  I  found  that  the  shutters 
of  the  house  were  up.  Knocking  and  getting  no  response, 
I  ascertained  from  a  pot-boy  who  was  passing  the  corner 
of  the  court  that  Mrs.  Gudgeon  had  decamped.  Neither 
the  pot-boy  nor  any  one  in  the  court  could  tell  me  whither 
she  was  gone. 

"But  where  is  Polly  Onion?"  I  asked  anxiously;  for  I 
was  beginning  to  blame  myself  bitterly  for  having  neglected 
them. 


33^  Aylwin 

"I  can  tell  you  where  poor  Polly  is,"  said  the  pot-boy. 
"She's  in  the  New  North  Cemetery.  She  fell  down  stairs 
and  broke  her  neck." 

"Why,  she  lived  down-stairs,"  I  said. 

"That's  true;  you  seem  to  be  well  up  in  the  family,  sir. 
But  Poll  couldn't  pay  her  rent,  so  old  Meg  took  her  in. 
And  on  the  very  morning  when  Meg  and  Poll  were 
a-startin'  off  together  into  the  country — it  was  quite  early 
and  dark — Poll  stumbles  over  three  young  flower  gals  as 
'ad  crep'  in  the  front  door  in  the  night  time  and  was  makin' 
the  stairs  their  bed.  Gals  as  hadn't  made  enough  to  pay  for 
their  night's  lodging  often  used  to  sleep  on  Meg:'s  stairs. 
Poll  was  picked  up  as  nigh  dead  as  a  toucher,  and  she  died 
at  the  'ospital." 

Toiling  in  the  revolving  cage  of  Circumstance,  I  strove 
in  vain  against  that  most  appalling  form  of  envy — the  envy 
of  one's  fellow-creatures  that  they  should  live  and  breathe 
while  there  is  no  breath  of  life  for  the  one. 

My  uncle  Cecil's  death  had  made  me  a  rich  man;  but 
what  was  wealth  to  me  if  it  could  not  buy  me  respite  from 
the  vision  haunting  me  day  and  night — the  vision  of  the 
attic,  the  mattress,  and  the  woman  ? 

And  as  I  thought  of  the  powerlessness  of  wealth  to  give 
me  one  crumb  of  comfort,  and  remembered  Winnie's  ser- 
mon about  wealth,  I  would  look  at  myself  in  the  mirror 
above  my  mantelpiece  and  smile  bitterly  at  the  sight  of  the 
hollow  cheeks,  furrowed  brow,  and  melancholy  eyes,  and 
recall  her  words  about  her  hovering  near  me  after  she 
was  dead. 

The  thought  of  my  wealth  and  the  squalor  in  which  she 
had  died  was,  I  think,  the  most  maddening  thought  of  all. 
I  had  now  become  possessor  of  Wilderspin's  picture.  Faith 
Olid  Love,  having  bought  it  of  the  Broad  Street  dealer  to 
whom  it  belonged ;  and  also  of  the  Christabel  picture,  and 
these  I  was  constantly  looking  at  as  they  hung  up  on  the 
walls  of  my  room.  After  a  while,  however,  I  destroyed 
the  Christabel  picture,  it  was  too  painful.  Though  I  would 
not  see  such  friends  as  I  had,  I  read  their  letters ;  indeed, 
it  was  these  same  letters  which  alone  could  draw  from  me 
a  grim  smile  now  and  then. 

Almost  every  letter  ended  by  urging  me,  in  order  to  flee 
from  my  sorrows,  to  travel !    With  the  typical  John  Bull 


The  Revolving  Cage  of  Circumstance   337 

travelling  seems  to  be  always  the  panacea.  In  sorrow, 
John's  herald  of  peace  is  Baedeker :  the  dispenser  of  John's 
true  nepenthe  is  Mr.  Murray.  Pity  and  love  for  Winifred 
pursued  me,  tortured  me  nigh  unto  death,  and  therefore 
did  these  friends  of  mine  seem  to  suppose  that  I  wanted  to 
flee  from  my  pity  and  sorrow !  Why,  to  flee  from  my  sor- 
row, to  get  free  of  my  pity,  to  flee  from  the  agonies  that 
went  nigh  to  tearing  soul  from  body,  would  have  been  to 
flee  from  all  that  I  had  left  of  life — memory. 

Did  I  want  to  flee  from  Winnie?  Why,  memory  was 
Winnie  now;  and  did  I  want  to  flee  from  her?  And  yet  it 
was  memory  that  was  goading  me  on  to  the  verge  of  mad- 
ness. No  doubt  the  reader  thinks  me  a  weak  creature  for 
allowing  the  passion  of  pity  to  sap  my  manhood  in  this 
fashion.  But  it  was  not  so  much  her  death  as  the  manner 
of  her  death  that  withered  my  heart  and  darkened  my  soul. 
The  calamities  which  fell  upon  her,  grievous  beyond  meas- 
ure, unparalleled,  not  to  be  thought  of  save  with  a  pallor 
of  cheek  and  a  shudder  of  the  flesh,  were  ever  before  me, 
mocking  me — maddening  me. 

"Died  in  a  hovel !"  As  I  gave  voice  to  this  impeachment 
of  Heaven,  night  after  night,  wandering  up  and  down  the 
streets,  my  brain  was  being  scorched  and  withered  by  those 
same  thoughts  of  anger  against  destiny  and  most  awful 
revolt  which  had  appalled  me  when  first  I  saw  how  the 
curse  of  Heaven  or  the  whim  of  Circumstance  had  been 
fulfilled. 

Then  came  that  passionate  yearning  for  death,  which 
grief  such  as  mine  must  needs  bring.  But  if  what  Mate- 
rialism teaches  were  true,  suicide  would  rob  me  even  of  my 
memory  of  her.  If,  on  the  other  hand,  what  I  had  been 
taught  by  the  supernaturalism  of  my  ancestors  were  true, 
to  commit  suicide  might  be  but  to  play  finally  into  the 
hands  of  that  same  unknown  pitiless  power  with  whom 
my  love  had  all  along  been  striving. 

"Suicide  might  sever  my  soul  from  hers  for  ever,"  I 
said,  and  then  the  tragedy  would  seem  too  monstrously 
unjust  to  be  true,  and  I  said :  "It  cannot  be — such  things 
cannot  be ;  it  is  a  hideous  dream.  She  is  not  dead  !  She  is 
in  Wales  with  friends  at  Carnarvon,  and  I  shall  awake  and 
laugh  at  all  this  imaginary  woe !' 

And  what  were  now  my  feelings  towards  the  memory  of 
my  father?    Can  a  man  cherish  in  his  heart  at  one  and  the 


33^  Aylwin 

same  moment  scorn  of  another  man  for  believing  in  the 
efficacy  of  a  curse,  and  bitter  anger  against  him  for  having 
left  a  curse  behind  him?  He  can!  On  my  return  to 
London  after  my  illness  I  had  sent  back  to  Wilderspin  the 
copy  of  The  Veiled  Queen  he  had  lent  me.  But  from  the 
library  of  Raxton  Hall  I  brought  my  father's  own  copy, 
elaborately  bound  in  the  tooled  black  calf  my  father 
aflfected.  The  very  sight  of  that  black  binding  now  irritated 
m.e;  never  did  I  pass  it  without  experiencing  a  sensation 
that  seemed  a  blending  of  scorn  and  fear:  scorn  of  the 
ancestral  superstitions  the  book  gave  voice  to :  fear  of 
them. 

One  day  I  took  the  book  from  the  shelves  and  then 
hurled  it  across  the  room.  Stumbling  over  it  some  days 
after  this,  a  spasm  of  ungovernable  rage  came  upon  me, 
for  terribly  was  my  blood  struggling  with  Fenella  Stanley 
and  Philip  Aylwin,  and  thousands  of  ancestors,  Romany 
and  Gorgio,  who  for  ages  upon  ages  had  been  shaping  my 
destiny,  I  began  to  tear  out  the  leaves  and  throw  them 
on  the  fire.  But  suddenly  I  perceived  the  leaves  to  be 
covered  with  marginalia  in  my  father's  manuscript,  and 
with  references  to  Fenella  Stanley's  letters — letters  which 
my  father  seemed  to  have  studied  as  deeply  as  though 
they  were  the  writings  of  a  great  philosopher  instead  of 
the  scribblings  of  an  ignorant  Gypsy.  My  eye  had  caught 
certain  written  words  which  caused  me  to  clutch  at  the 
sheets  still  burning  on  the  fire.  Too  late ! — I  grasped 
nothing  save  a  little  paper-ash.  Then  I  turned  to  the 
pages  still  left  in  my  hand,  and  read  these  words  of  my 
father's : 

"These  marginalia  are  written  for  the  eyes  of  my  dear  son,  into 
whose  hands  this  copy  of  my  book  will  come.  Until  he  gave  me 
his  promise  to  bury  the  amulet  with  me,  I  felt  alone  in  the  world. 
But  even  he  failed  to  understand  what  he  called  my  'superstition.' 
He  did  not  know  that  by  perpetually  feeling  on  my  bosom  the 
facets  of  the  beloved  jewel  which  had  long  lain  warm  upon  hers — 
the  cross  which  had  received  the  last  kiss  from  her  lips — I  had  been 
able  to  focus  all  the  scattered  rays  of  thought — I  had  been  able  to 
vitalize  memory  till  it  became  an  actual  presence.  He  did  not 
know  that  out  of  my  sorrow  had  been  born  at  last  a  strange  kind 
of  happiness — the  happiness  that  springs  from  loving  a  memory — 
living  with  a  memory  till  it  becomes  a  presence — an  objective 
reality.  He  did  not  know  that,  by  holding  her  continually  in  my 
thoughts,  by  means  of  the  amulet,  I  achieved  at  last  the  miracle 
described  by  the  Hindoo  poets — the  miracle  of  reshaping  from  the 


The  Revolving  Cage  of  Circumstance   339 

undulations  of  'the  three  regions  of  the  universe  the  remembered 
object  by  the  all-creative  magic  of  lovel'  " 

Then  followed  some  translations  from  the  Kumarasamb- 
hava  and  other  Sanscrit  poems,  and  then  the  well-known 
passage  in  Lucretius  about  dreams,  and  then  a  pathetic 
account  of  the  visions  called  up  within  him  by  the  sensa- 
tion caused  by  the  lacerations  of  the  facets  of  the  cherished 
amulet  upon  his  bosom — visions  something  akin,  as  I 
imagine,  to  those  experienced  by  conviilsionnaires.  And 
then  after  all  this  learning  came  references  to  poor 
ignorant  Fenella  Stanley's  letters  and  extracts  from 
them. 

In  one  of  these  extracts  I  was  startled  to  come  upon 
the  now  familiar  word  crwth. 

"De  Welch  fok  ses  as  de  livin'  mullos  only  follow  the  crwth  on 
Snowden  wen  it  is  playde  by  a  Welch  Chavi,  but  dat  is  all  a  lie. 
Dey  follows  the  crwth  when  a  Romany  Chi  plays  it,  as  I  nos  very 
wel,  but  de  Chavi  wot  play  on  the  crwth,  shee  must  love  the  living 
muUo  she  want  for  to  come,  and  de  living  mullo  must  love  her." 

And  then  followed  my  father's  comments  on  the  ex- 
tract. 

"N.  B. — To  see  and  hear  a  crwth,  if  possible,  and  ascertain  the 
true  nature  of  the  vibrations.  But  there  are  said  to  be  only  a  few 
crwths  in  existence;  and  very  likely  there  is  no  musician  who  can 
play  upon  them." 

Then  followed  a  few  sentences  written  at  a  later  date. 

"The  crwth  is  now  becoming  obsolete;  on  inquiry  I  learn  that  it 
is  a  stringed  instrument  played  with  a  bow  like  a  violin;  but  as  one 
of  the  feet  of  the  bridge  passes  through  one  of  the  sound-holes 
and  rests  on  the  inside  of  the  back,  the  vibrations  must  be  quite 
unique,  if  we  remember  how  important  a  part  is  played  by  the  back 
in  all  instruments  of  the  violin  kind.  It  must  be  far  more  subtle 
than  the  vibrations  of  the  Welsh  harp,  and  even  more  subtle  (if 
also  more  nasal)  than  those  of  the  violin. 

"The  reason  why' music  has  in  all  ages  been  called  in  to  aid  in 
evoking  the  spirits,  the  reason  why  it  is  as  potent  now  as  ever  it 
was  in  aiding  the  spirits  to  manifest  themselves,  is  simple  enough: 
the  rhythmic  vibrations  of  music  set  in  active  motion  the  magnetic 
waves  through  whose  means  alone  the  two  worlds,  spiritual  and 
material,  can  hold  communication.  The  quality  and  the  value  of 
these  vibrations  depends  mainly,  no  doubt,  upon  the  magnetic 
power,  conscious  or  other,  of  the  musician,  but  partly  also  upon  the 
kind  of  instrument  used.  The  vibrations  awakened  by  stringed  in- 
struments have  been  long  known  to  be  more  subtle  than  any 
others;  instruments  of  the  violin  kind  are  of  course  the  most  subtle 
of  all.  Doubtless  this  is  why  among  the  Welsh  hills  the  old  say- 
ing used  to  be,  'The  spirits  follow  the  crwth.'  " 


340  Aylwin 

"Which  folly  is  the  more  besotted,"  I  said  as  I  read  and 
re-read  the  marginalia — "that  of  the  scholar  with  his  scien- 
tific nonsense  abovit  vibrations,  or  that  of  the  ignorant 
Gypsy  with  her  livin'  mullos  drawn  through  the  air  by 
music  and  love?" 

But  from  this  moment  my  mind  began  to  run  upon  the 
picture  of  Fenella  Stanley,  surrounded  by  those  Snowdon- 
ian  spirits  which  her  music  was  supposed  to  have  evoked 
from  the  mountain  air  of  the  morning. 


XIII. 

The    Magic    of  Snowdon 


XIII. —THE    MAGIC    OF 
SNOWDON 


In  a  few  days  I  left  London  and  went  to  North  Wales. 

Opposite  to  me  in  the  railway  carriage  sat  an  elderly 
lady,  into  whose  face  I  occasionally  felt  myself  to  be  staring 
in  an  unconscious  way.  But  I  was  merely  communing 
with  myself;  I  was  saying  to  myself,  "My  love  of  North 
Wales,  and  especially  of  Snowdon,  is  certainly  very  strong; 
but  it  is  easily  accounted  for — it  is  a  matter  of  tempera- 
ment. Even  had  Wales  not  been  associated  with  Winnie, 
I  still  must  have  dearly  loved  it.  Much  has  been  said 
about  the  effect  of  scenery  upon  the  minds  and  tempera- 
ment of  those  who  are  native  to  it.  But  temperament  is  a 
matter  of  ancestral  conditions :  the  place  of  one's  birth 
is  an  accident.  As  some,  like  my  cousin  Percy,  for  in- 
stance, are  born  with  a  passion  for  the  sea,  so  some  people 
are  born  with  a  passion  for  forests,  some  with  a  passion 
for  mountains,  and  some  with  a  passion  for  rolling  plains. 
The  landscape  amid  which  I  was  born  had,  no  doubt,  a 
charm  for  me,  and  could  bring  to  me  that  nature-ecstasy 
which  I  inherited  from  Fenella  Stanley.  But  with  Wales 
I  actually  fell  in  love  the  moment  I  set  foot  in  the  country. 
This  is  why  I  am  hurrying  there  now." 

And  then  I  laughed  at  myself,  and  evidently  frightened 
the  old  lady  very  much.  She  did  not  know  that  under- 
neath the  soul's  direst  struggle — the  struggle  of  personality 
with  the  tyranny  of  the  ancestral  blood — there  is  an  awful 
sense  of  humour — a  laughter  (unconquerable,  and  yet  in- 
tolerable) at  the  deepest  of  all  incongruities,  the  incon- 
gruity of  Fate's  game  with  man.  I  apologised  to  her,  and 
told  her  that  I  had  been  absorbed  in  reading  a  droll  story. 


344  Aylwin 

in  which  a  man  believed  that  the  Angel  of  Memory  had 
re-fashioned  for  him  his  dead  wife  out  of  his  own  sorrow 
and  unquenchable  fountain  of  tears. 

"'What  an  extraordinary  idea!"  said  the  old  lady,  in  the 
conciliatory  tone  she  would  have  adopted  towards  a  mad- 
man whom  she  found  alone  with  her  in  a  railway  carriage. 
"I  mean  he  was  very  eccentric,  wasn't  he?" 

"Who  shall  say,  madam?  'Bold  is  the  donkey-driver 
and  bold  the  ka'dee  who  dares  say  what  he  will  believe, 
what  disbelieve,  not  knowing  in  any  wise  the  mind  of  Allah, 
not  knowing  in  any  wise  his  own  heart  and  what  it  shall 
some  day  suffer.'  " 

At  the  next  station  the  old  lady  left  the  carriage  and 
entered  another,  and  I  was  left  alone. 

My  intention  was  to  take  up  my  residence  at  the  cot- 
tage where  Winifred  had  lived  with  her  aunt.  Indeed, 
for  a  few  days  I  did  this,  taking  with  me  one  of  the  Welsh 
peasants  with  whom  I  had  previously  made  friends.  But 
of  course  a  lengthened  stay  in  such  a  house  was  impossi- 
ble. More  than  ever  now  I  needed  attendance,  and  good 
attendance,  for  I  had  passed  into  a  strange  state  of  irrita- 
bility— I  had  no  command  over  my  nerves,  which  were 
jarred  by  the  most  trifling  thing.  I  went  to  the  hotel  at 
Pen  y  Gwryd,  but  there  tourists  and  visitors  made  life 
more  intolerable  still  to  a  man  in  my  condition. 

At  first  I  thought  of  building  a  house  as  near  to  the 
cottage  as  possible ;  but  this  would  take  time,  and  I  could 
not  rest  out  of  Wales.  I  decided  at  last  to  have  a  wooden 
bungalow  built.  By  telling  the  builders  that  time  was  the 
first  consideration  with  me,  the  cost  a  secondary  one,  I 
got  a  bungalow  built  in  a  few  weeks.  By  the  tradesmen 
of  Chester  I  got  it  fitted  up  and  furnished  to  my  taste  with 
equal  rapidity.    Attending  to  this  business  gave  real  relief. 

When  the  bungalow  was  finished  I  removed  into  it  the 
picture  "Faith  and  Love."  I  also  got  in  as  much  painting 
material  as  I  might  want  and  began  to  make  sketches  in  the 
neighbourhood. 

Time  went  on,  and  there  I  remained.  In  a  great  degree, 
however,  the  habit  of  grieving  was  conquered  by  my 
application  to  work.  My  moroseness  of  temper  gradually 
left  me. 

Beautiful  memories  began  to  take  the  place  of  hideous 
ones — the  picture  of  the  mattress  and  the  squalor  gave 


The   Magic  of  Snowdon  345 

place  to  pictures  of  Winifred  on  the  sands  of  Raxton  or  on 
Snowdon.  Yet  so  much  of  habit  is  there  in  grief  that  even 
at  this  time  I  was  subject  to  recurrent  waves  of  the  old 
pain — waves  which  were  sometimes  as  overmastering  as 
ever. 

I  did  not  neglect  the  cottage,  which  was  now  my  prop- 
erty, but  kept  it  in  exactly  the  same  state  as  that  in  which 
it  had  been  put  by  Sinli  after  Winnie  had  wandered  back  to 
Wales. 

By  isolating  myself  from  all  society,  by  surrounding  my- 
self with  mementoes  of  Winifred,  memory  really  did  at 
last  seem  to  be  working  a  miracle  such  as  was  worked 
for  the  widowed  Ja'afar. 

Yet  not  entirely  had  memory  passed  into  an  objective 
presence.  I  seemed  to  feel  Winnie  near  me ;  but  that  was 
all.  I  felt  that  more  necessary  than  anything  else  in  per- 
fecting the  atmosphere  of  memory  in  which  I  would  live 
was  the  society  of  her  in  whom  alone  I  had  found  sympathy 
— Sinfi  Lovell.  Did  I  also  remember  the  wild  theories  of 
my  father  and  r'cnella  Stanley  about  the  crwth?  To  ob- 
tain the  company  of  Sinfi  had  now  become  very  difficult — 
her  attitude  towards  me  had  so  changed.  When  she  al- 
lowed me  to  rejoin  the  Lovells  at  Kingston  Vale  she  did 
so  under  the  compulsion  of  my  distress.  But  my  leaving 
the  Gypsies  of  my  own  accord  left  her  free  from  this  com- 
pulsion. She  felt  that  she  had  now  at  last  bidden  me  fare- 
well for  ever. 

Still,  opportunities  of  seeing  her  occasionally  would,  I 
knew,  present  themselves,  and  I  now  determined  to  avail 
myself  of  these.  Panuel  Lovell  and  some  of  the  Boswells 
were  not  unfrequently  in  the  neighbourhood,  and  they  were 
always  accompanied  by  Sinfi  and  Videy. 


II. 

On  a  certain  occasion,  when  I  learnt  that  the  Lovells  were 
in  the  neighbourhood,  I  sought  them  out.  Sinfi  at  first  was 
extremely  shy,  or  distant,  or  proud,  or  scared,  and  it  was 
not  till  after  one  or  two  interviews  that  she  relaxed.  She 
still  was  overshadowed  by  some  mysterious  feeling  towards 


34^  Aylwin 

me  that  seemed  at  one  moment  anger,  at  another  dread. 
However,  I  succeeded  at  last.  I  persuaded  Panuel  and  his 
daughters  to  leave  their  friends  at  "the  Place,"  and  spend 
a  few  days  with  me  at  the  bungalow.  Great  was  the  gaping 
and  wide  the  grinning  among  the  tourists  to  see  me  march- 
ing along  the  Capel  Curig  road  with  three  Gypsies.  But 
to  all  human  opinion  I  had  become  as  indifferent  as 
Wilderspin  himself. 

As  we  walked  along  the  road,  Sinfi  slowly  warmed  into 
her  old  self,  but  Videy,  as  usual,  was  silent,  preoccupied, 
and  meditative.  When  we  got  within  sight  of  the  bunga- 
low, however,  the  lights  flashing  from  the  windows  made 
the  long  low  building  look  very  imposing.  Pharaoh,  the 
bantam  cock  which  Sinfi  was  carrying  began  to  crow,  but 
silence  again  fell  upon  Sinfi. 

Panuel,  when  we  entered  the  bungalow,  said  he  was  very 
tired  and  would  like  to  go  to  bed.  I  had  perceived  by 
the  glossy  appearance  of  his  skin  (which  was  of  the  colour 
of  beeswaxed  mahogany)  and  the  benevolent  dimple  in  his 
cheek  that,  although  far  from  being  intoxicated,  he  was 
"market-merry" ;  and  as  the  two  sisters  also  seemed  tired, 
I  took  the  party  at  once  to  their  bedrooms. 

"Dordi !  what  a  gran'  room,"  said  Sinfi  in  a  hushed  voice, 
as  I  opened  the  door  of  the  one  allotted  to  her.  "Don't 
you  mind,  Videy,  when  you  an'  me  fust  slep'  like  two 
kairengros  ?"* 

"No,  I  don't,"  said  Videy  sharply. 

"It  was  at  Llangollen  Fair,"  continued  Sinfi,  her  frank 
face  beaming  like  a  great  child's ;  "two  little  chavies  we 
was  then.  An'  don't  you  mind,  Videy,  how  we  both  on  us 
cried  when  they  put  us  to  bed,  'cause  we  was  afeard  the 
ceilin'  would  fall  down  on  us?" 

Videy  made  no  answer,  but  tossed  up  her  head  and 
looked  around  to  see  whether  there  was  a  grinning  serv- 
ant within  earshot. 

"Good  night,  Sinfi,"  I  said,  shaking  her  hand ;  "and  now, 
Videy,  I  will  show  you  your  room." 

"Oh,  but  Videy  an'  me  sleeps  togither,  don't  we?" 

"Certainly,  if  you  wish  it,"  I  replied. 

"She's  afeard  o'  the  'mullos',"  said  Videy,  scornfully,  as 
she  went  and  stood  before  an  old  engraved  Venetian  mir- 
ror I  had  picked  up  at  Chester,  admiring  her  own  perfect 

*House-dwellers. 


The  Magic  of  Snowdon  347 

little  figure  reflected  therein.  "Ever  since  she's  know'd 
you  she's  bin  afeard  o'  mullos,  and  keeps  Pharaoh  with 
her  o'  nights;  the  mullos  never  come  where  there's  a 
crowin'  cock." 

I  did  not  look  at  Sinfi,  but  bent  my  eyes  upon  the  mirror, 
where,  several  inches  above  the  reflex  of  Videy's  sarcastic 
face,  shone  the  features  of  Sinfi,  perfectly  cut  as  those  of  a 
Greek  statue. 

"It's  the  dukkerin'  dook*  as  she's  afeard  on,"  said  Videy, 
smiling  in  the  glass  till  her  face  seemed  one  wicked  glitter 
of  scarlet  lips  and  pearly  teeth.  "An'  yit  there  ain't  no 
dukkerin'  dook,  an'  there  ain't  no  mullos." 

Among  the  elaborately-engraved  flowers  and  stars  at  the 
top  of  the  mirror  was  the  representation  of  an  angel  grasp- 
ing a  musical  instrument. 

"Look,  look !"  said  Sinfi,  "I  never  know'd  afore  that 
angels  played  the  crwth.  I  wonder  whether  they  can  draw 
a  livin'  mullo  up  to  the  clouds,  same  as  my  crwth  can  draw 
one  to  Snowdon  ?" 

I  bade  them  good-night,  and  joined  Panuel  at  the  door. 

I  was  conducting  him  along  the  corridor  to  his  room 
when  the  door  was  re-opened  and  Sinfi's  head  appeared^ 
as  bright  as  ever,  and  then  a  beckoning  hand. 

"Reia,"  said  she,  when  I  had  returned  to  the  door,  "I 
want  to  whisper  a  word  in  your  ear" ;  and  she  pulled  my 
head  towards  the  door  and  whispered,  "Don't  tell  nobody 
about  that  'ere  jewelled  trushul  in  the  church  vaults  at 
Raxton.  We  shall  be  going  down  there  at  the  fair  time, 
so  don't  tell  nobody." 

"But  you  surely  are  not  afraid  of  your  father,"  I  whis- 
pered in  reply. 

"No,  no,"  said  she,  bringing  her  lips  so  close  to  my  face 
that  I  felt  the  breath  steaming  round  my  ear.  "Not  daddy 
— Videy ! — Daddy  can't  keep  a  secret  for  five  minutes.  It's 
her  I'm  afeared  on." 

I  had  scarcely  left  the  door  two  yards  behind  me  when  I 
heard  the  voices  of  the  sisters  in  loud  altercation.  I  heard 
Sinfi  exclaim,  "I  sha'n't  tell  you  what  I  said  to  him,  so 
now!  It  was  somcthin'  atween  him  an'  me." 

"There  they  are  ag'in,"  said  Panuel,  bending  his  head 
sagely  round  and  pointing  with  his  thumb  over  his  shoul- 
der to  the  door ;  "at  it  ag'in !  Them  two  chavies  o'  mine  are 
*The  prophesying  ghost. 


34^  Aylwin 

alius  a-quarrellin'  now,  an'  it's  alius  about  the  same  thing. 
'Tain't  the  quarrellin'  as  I  mind  so  much, — women  an' 
sparrows,  they  say,  must  cherrup  an'  quarrel, — but  they 
needn't  alius  keep  a-nag-naggin'  about  the  same  thing." 

"What's  their  subject,  Panuel?"  I  asked. 

"Subjick?  Why  you,  in  course.  That's  what  the  subjick 
is.  When  women  quarrels  you  may  alius  be  sure  there's 
a  chap  somewheres  about." 

By  this  time  we  had  entered  his  bedroom :  he  went  and 
sat  upon  the  bed,  and  without  looking  round  him  began 
unlacing  his  "highlows."  I  had  often  on  previous  occa- 
sions remarked  that  Panuel,  who,  when  sober,  was  as  silent 
as  Videy,  and  looked  like  her  in  the  face,  became,  the  mo- 
ment that  he  passed  into  "market-merriness,"  as  frank  and 
communicative  as  Sinfi,  and  (what  was  more  inexplicable) 
looked  as  much  like  Sinfi  as  he  had  previously  looked  like 
Videy. 

"How  can  I  be  the  subject  of  their  quarrels?"  I  said 
listlessly  enough,  for  I  scarcely  at  first  followed  his  words. 

"How  ?    Ain't  you  a  chap  ?" 

"Undoubtedly,  Panuel,  I  am  a  chap." 

"When  women  quarrels  there's  alius  a  chap  somewheres 
about,  in  course  there  is.  But  look  ye  here,  Mr.  Aylwin, 
the  fault  ain't  Sinfi's,  not  a  bit  of  it.  It's  Videy's,  wi'  her 
dog-in-the-manger  ways.  She's  a  back-bred  'un,"  he  said, 
giving  me  a  knowing  wink  as  he  pulled  ofif  his  calf-skin 
waistcoat  and  tossed  it  on  to  a  chair  at  the  further  end 
of  the  room  with  a  certainty  of  aim  that  would  have  been 
marvellous,  even  had  he  been  entirely  free  from  market- 
merriness. 

I  had  before  observed  that  Panuel  when  market-merry 
always  designated  Videy  the  "back-bred  'un,  that  took 
a'ter  Shuri's  blazin'  old  dad !"  when  sober  his  views  of 
heredity  changed ;  the  "back-bred  'un"  was  Sinfi. 

After  breakfast  next  morning  it  was  agreed  that  Panuel 
and  Videy  should  walk  to  the  Place  to  see  that  everything 
was  going  on  well,  while  Sinfi  and  I  should  remain  in  the 
bungalow.  I  observed  from  the  distance  that  Videy  had 
loitered  behind  her  father  on  the  Capel  Curig  road.  I 
saw  a  dark  shadow  of  anger  pass  over  Sinfi's  face,  and  I 
soon  imderstood  what  was  causing  it.  The  daughter  of  the 
well-to-do  Panuel  Lovell  and  my  guest  was  accosting  a 
tourist  with,  "Let  me  tell  you  your  fortune,  my  pretty  gen- 


The  Magic  of  Snowdon  349 

tleman.  Give  the  poor  Gypsy  a  sixpence  for  luck,  my 
gentleman." 

The  bungalow  delighted  Sinfi.  "It's  just  like  a  great 
livin'-waggin,  only  more  comfortable,"  said  she. 

We  spent  the  entire  morning  and  afternoon  there,  and 
much  of  the  next  two  days.  It  certainly  seemed  to  me 
that  her  mere  presence  was  an  immense  stimulus  to  mem- 
ory in  vitalising  its  one  image. 

"What's  the  use  o'  us  a-keepin'  a-talkin'  about  Winnie?" 
Sinfi  said  to  me  one  day.  "It  on'y  makes  you  fret.  You 
skears  me  sometimes ;  for  your  eyes  are  a-gettin'  jis'  as 
sad-lookin'  as  Mr.  D'Arcv's  eyes,  an'  it's  all  along  o' 
frettin'." 

I  persuaded  her  to  stay  with  me  while  Panuel  and  Videy 
went  on  to  Chester,  for  she  could  both  soothe  and  amuse 
me. 


III. 

Those  who  might  suppose  that  Sinfi  Lovell's  lack  of 
education  would  be  a  barrier  against  our  sympathy,  know 
little  or  nothing  of  real  sorrow — little  or  nothing  of  the 
human  heart — little  or  nothing  of  the  stricken  soul  that 
looks  out  on  man  and  his  convention  through  the  light  of 
an  intolerable  pain. 

I  now  began  to  read  and  study  as  well  as  paint.  But  so 
absorbed  was  I  in  my  struggle  with  Fenella  Stanley  and 
Romany  superstitions,  that  the  only  subject  which  could 
distract  me  from  memory  was  that  of  hereditary  influence 
— prepotency  of  transmission  in  relation  to  races.  Though 
Sinfi  could  neither  read  nor  write,  she  loved  to  sit  by  my 
side  and,  caressing  Pharaoh,  to  watch  me  as  I  read  or 
wrote.  To  her  there  evidently  seemed  something  myste- 
rious and  uncanny  in  writing,  something  like  "penning 
dukkering."  It  seemed  to  her,  I  think,  a  much  more  re- 
markable accomplishment  than  that  of  painting.  And  as 
to  reading,  I  am  not  sure  that  the  satirical  Videy  was  en- 
tirely wrong  in  saying  that  Sinfi  believed  that  books  "could 
talk  jis'  like  men  and  women."  Not  a  word  would  she 
speak,  save  when  she  now  and  then  bent  down  her  head  to 
whisper  to  Pharaoh  when  that  little  warrior  was  inclined  to 


3  50  Aylwin 

give  a  disturbing  chuckle,  or  to  shake  his  wattles.  And 
when  at  last  she  and  Pharaoh  got  wearied  by  the  prolonged 
silence,  she  would  begin  to  murmur  in  a  tone  of  playful 
satire  to  the  restless  bird,  "Mum,  mum,  Pharaoh.  He's 
too  boot  of  a  much  to  rocker  a  choori  chavi."  [Hush, 
hush,  Pharaoh.  He's  too  proud  to  speak  to  a  poor 
child.] 

Of  course  there  was  immense  curiosity  about  my  life  at 
the  bungalow,  not  only  among  the  visitors  at  the  Capel 
Curig  Hotel,  but  among  the  Welsh  residents ;  and  rarely 
did  the  weekly  papers  come  out  without  some  paragraph 
about  me.  As  a  result  of  this,  some  of  the  London  papers 
reproduced  the  paragraphs,  and  built  upon  their  gossip 
columns  of  a  positively  offensive  nature.  In  a  paper  which 
I  will  for  convenience  call  the  London  Satirist  appeared  a 
paragraph  which  some  one  cut  out  of  the  columns  of  the 
paper  and  posted  to  me.    It  ran  thus : 

"The  Eccentric  Aylwins. — The  power  of  heredity,  which  has 
much  exercised  the  mind  of  Balzac,  has  never  been  more  strikingly 
exemplified  than  in  the  case  of  the  great  family  of  the  Aylwins.  It 
is  matter  of  common  knowledge  that  some  generations  ago  one  of 
the  Aylwins  married  a  Gypsy.  This  fact  did  not,  however,  prevent 
his  branch  from  being  respectable,  and  receiving  the  name  of  the 
proud  Aylwins;  and  the  Gypsy  blood  remained  entirely  in  abeyance 
until  the  present  generation.  Mr.  Percy  Aylwin,  it  will  be  remem- 
bered, having  been  smitten  by  the  charms  of  a  certain  Rhona  Bos- 
well,  actually  set  up  a  tent  with  the  Gypsies;  and  now  Mr.  Henry 
Aylwin,  of  Raxton  Hall  (who,  by  the  bye,  has  never  been  seen  in 
that  neighbourhood  since  the  great  landslip),  is  said  to  be  following  a 
good  example  by  living  in  Wales  with  a  Gypsy  wife,  but  whether 
the  wedding  took  place  at  St.  George's,  Hanover  Square,  or  in 
simpler  fashion  in  an  encampment  of  Little  Egypt  we  do  not 
know." 

One  day  in  the  bungalow,  when  I  was  reading  the  copi- 
ous marginalia  with  which  my  father  had  furnished  his 
own  copy  of  The  Veiled  Queen,  I  came  upon  a  passage 
which  so  completely  carried  my  mind  back  to  the 
night  of  our  betrothal  that  I  heard  as  plainly  as  I  had 
then  heard  Winnie's  words  at  the  door  of  her  father's 
cottage : 

"I  should  have  to  come  in  the  winds  and  play  around 
you  in  the  woods.  I  should  have  to  peep  over  the  clouds 
and  watch  you.  I  should  have  to  follow  you  about  wher- 
ever you  went.  I  should  have  to  beset  you  till  you  said : 
'Bother  Winnie !  I  wish  she'd  keep  in  heaven  !'  " 


The  Magic  of  Snowdon  351 

The  written  words  of  my  father  that  had  worked  this 
magical  efifect  upon  me  were  these : 

"But  after  months  of  these  lonely  wanderings  in  Graylingham 
Wood  and  along  the  sands,  not  even  the  reshaping  power  of  mem- 
ory would  suffice  to  appease  my  longing;  a  new  hope,  wild  as  new, 
was  breaking  in  upon  my  soul,  dim  and  yet  golden,  like  the  sun 
struggling  through  a  sea-fog.  While  wandering  with  me  along  the 
sands  on  the  eve  of  that  dreadful  day  when  I  lost  her,  she  had  de- 
clared that  even  in  heaven  she  could  not  rest  without  me,  nor  did 
I  understand  how  she  could.  For  by  this  time  my  instincts  had 
fully  taught  me  that  there  is  a  kind  of  love  so  intense  that  no  power 
in  the  universe — not  death  itself — is  strong  enough  to  sever  it 
from  its  object.  I  knew  that  although  true  spiritual  love,  as  thus 
understood,  scarcely  exists  among  Englishmen,  and  even  among 
Englishwomen  is  so  rare  that  the  capacity  for  feeling  it  is  a  kind  of 
genius,  this  genius  was  hers.  Sooner  or  later  I  said  to  myself, 
'She  will  and  must  manifest  herself!'  " 

I  looked  up  from  the  book  and  saw  both  Sinfi  and 
Pharaoh  gazing  at  me. 

"Sinfi,"  I  said,  "what  were  Winnie's  favourite  places 
among  the  hills?  Where  was  she  most  in  the  habit  of 
roaming  when  she  stayed  with  your  people  ?" 

'Tf  I  ain't  told  you  that  often  enough  it's  a  pity,  brother," 
she  said.     "What  do  yon  think,  Pharaoh?" 

Pharoah  expressed  his  acquiescence  in  the  satire  by  clap- 
ping his  wings  and  crowing  at  me  contemptuously. 

"The  place  I  think  she  liked  most  of  all  wur  that  very 
pool  where  she  and  you  breakfasted  together  on  that 
morning." 

"Were  there  no  other  favourite  places?" 

"Yes,  there  wur  the  Fairy  Glen ;  she  wur  very  fond  of 
that.  And  there  wur  the  Swallow  Falls ;  she  wur  very  fond 
of  them.  And  there  wur  a  place  on  the  Beddgelert  path- 
way, up  from  the  Carnarvon  road,  about  two  miles  from 
Beddgelert.  There  is  a  great  bit  of  rock  there  where  she 
used  to  love  to  sit  and  look  across  towards  Anglesey.  And 
talking  about  that  place  reminds  me,  brother,  that  our 
people  and  the  Boswells  and  a  lot  more  are  camped  on  the 
Carnarvon  road  just  where  the  pathway  up  Snowdon  be- 
gins. And  I  wur  told  yesterday  by  a  'quaintance  of  mine 
as  I  seed  outside  the  bungalow  that  daddy  and  Videy  had 
joined  them.     Shouldn't  we  go  and  see  'em?" 

This  exactly  fitted  in  with  the  thoughts  and  projects  that 
had  suddenly  come  to  me,  and  it  was  arranged  that  we 
should  start  for  the  encampment  next  morning. 


352  Aylwin 

As  we  were  leaving  the  bungalow  the  next  day,  I  said 
to  Sinfi,  "You  are  not  taking  your  crwth," 

"Crwth!  we  sha'n't  want  that." 

"Your  people  are  very  fond  of  music,  you  know.  Your 
father  is  very  fond  of  a  musical  tea." 

"So  he  is.    I'll  take  it,"  said  Sinfi. 


IV. 

When  we  reached  the  camping  place  on  the  Carnarvon 
road  we  found  a  very  jolly  party.  Panuel  had  had  some 
very  successful  dealings,  and  he  was  slightly  market-merry. 
He  said  to  Videy,  "Make  the  tea,  Vi,  and  let  Sinfi  hev' 
hern  fust,  so  that  she  can  play  on  the  Welsh  fiddle  while 
the  rest  on  us  are  gettin'  ourn.  It'll  seem  jist  like  Chester 
Fair  with  Jim  Burton  scrapin'  in  the  dancin'  booth  to  heel 
and  toe." 

Sinfi  soon  finished  her  tea,  and  began  to  play  some 
merry  dancing  airs,  which  set  Rhona  Boswell's  limbs  twit- 
tering till  she  spilt  her  tea  in  her  lap.  Then,  laughing  at 
the  catastrophe,  she  sprang  up  saying,  "I'll  dance  myself 
dry,"  and  began  dancing  on  the  sward. 

After  tea  was  over  the  party  got  too  boisterous  for  Sinfi's 
taste  and  she  said  to  me,  "Let's  slip  away,  brother,  and  go 
up  the  pathway,  and  I'll  show  you  Winnie's  favourite 
place." 

This  proposal  met  my  wishes  entirely,  and  under  the  pre- 
tence of  going  to  look  at  something  on  the  Carnarvon 
road  we  managed  to  escape  from  the  party,  Sinfi  still  carry- 
ing her  crwth  and  bow.  She  then  led  the  way  up  a  slope 
green  with  grass  and  moss.  We  did  not  talk  till  we  had 
passed  the  slate  quarry. 

The  evening  was  so  fine  and  the  scene  was  so  lovely  that 
Sinfi's  very  body  seemed  to  drink  it  in  and  become  intoxi- 
cated with  beauty.  After  we  had  left  the  slate  quarries 
behind,  the  panorama  became  more  entrancing  at  every 
yard  we  walked.  Cwellyn  Lake  and  Valley,  Moel  Hebog, 
y  Garnedd,  the  glittering  sea,  Anglesey,  Holyhead  Hill,  all 
seemed  to  be  growing  in  gold  and  glory  out  of  masses  of 
sunset  mist. 


The  Magic  of  Snowdon  353 

When  at  last  we  reached  the  edge  of  a  steep  chff,  with 
the  rocky  forehead  of  Snowdon  in  front,  and  the  shining 
llyns  of  Cwm  y  Clogwyn  below,  Sinfi  stopped. 

"This  is  the  place,"  said  she,  sitting  down  on  a  mossy 
mound,  "where  Winnie  loved  to  come  and  look  down." 

After  Sinfi  and  I  had  sat  on  this  mound  for  a  few  min- 
utes, I  asked  her  to  sing  and  play  one  or  two  Welsh  airs 
which  I  knew  to  be  especial  favourites  of  hers,  and  then, 
with  much  hesitancy,  I  asked  her  to  play  and  sing  the 
same  song  or  incantation  which  had  become  associated  for 
ever  with  my  first  morning  on  the  hills. 

"You  mean  the  Welsh  dukkerin'  gillie,"  said  Sinfi,  look- 
ing, with  an  expression  that  might  have  been  either  alarm 
or  suspicion,  into  my  face. 

"Yes." 

"You've  been  a-thinkin'  all  this  while,  brother,  that  I 
don't  know  why  you  asked  me  about  Winnie's  favourite 
places  on  Snowdon,  and  why  you  wanted  me  to  take  my 
crwth  to  the  camp.  But  I've  been  a-thinkin'  about  it,  and 
I  know  now  why  you  did,  and  I  know  why  you  wants 
me  to  play  the  Welsh  dukkerin'  gillie  here.  It's  because 
you  heerd  me  say  that  if  I  were  to  play  that  dukkerin'  gillie 
on  Snowdon  in  the  places  she  was  fond  on,  I  could  tell  for 
sartin  whether  Winnie  wur  alive  or  dead.  If  she  wur  alive 
her  livin'  mullo  'ud  follow  the  crwth.  But  I  ain't  a-goin' 
to  do  it." 

"Why  not,  Sinfi?" 

"Because  my  mammy  used  to  say  it  ain't  right  to  make 
use  o'  the  real  dukkerin'  for  Gorgios,  and  I've  heerd  her 
say  that  if  them  as  had  the  real  dukkerin' — the  dukkerin' 
for  the  Romanies — used  it  for  the  Gorgios,  or  if  they  turned 
it  into  a  sport  and  a  plaything,  it  'ud  leave  'em  altogether. 
And  that  ain't  the  wust  on  it,  for  when  the  real  dukkerin' 
leaves  you  it  turns  into  a  kind  of  a  cuss,  and  it  brings  on  the 
bite  of  the  Romany  Sap.*  Even  now,  Hal,  I  sometimes  o' 
nights  feels  the  bite  here  of  the  Romany  Sap,"  pointing  to 
her  bosom,  "and  it's  all  along  o'  you,  Hal,  it's  all  along  o' 
you,  because  I  seem  to  be  breaking  the  promise  about 
Gorgios  I  made  to  my  poor  mammy." 

"The  Romany  Sap  ?  You  mean  the  Romany  conscience, 
I  suppose,  Sinfi ;  you  mean  the  trouble  a  Romany  feels 
when  he  has  broken  the  Romany  laws,  when  he  has  done 
*The  Romany  serpent,  Conscience. 


354  Aylwin 

wrong  according  to  the  Romany  notions  of  right  and 
wrong.     But  you  are  innocent  of  all  wrong-doing." 

"I  don't  know  nothin'  about  conscience,"  said  she.  "I 
mean  the  Romany  Sap.  Don't  you  mind  when  we  was 
a-goin'  up  Snowdon  arter  Winifred  that  mornin'?  I  told 
you  as  the  rocks,  an'  the  trees,  an'  the  winds,  an'  the  waters, 
cuss  us  when  we  goes  ag'in  the  Romany  blood  an'  ag'in 
the  dukkerin'  dook.  The  cuss  that  the  rocks,  an'  the  trees, 
an'  the  winds,  an'  the  Vv'aters  makes,  an'  sends  it  out  to  bite 
the  burk*  o'  the  Romany  as  does  wrong — that's  the 
Romany  Sap." 

"You  mean  conscience,  Sinfi." 

"No,  I  don't  mean  nothink  o'  the  sort ;  the  Romanies 
ain't  got  no  conscience,  an'  if  the  Gorgios  has,  it's  precious 
little  good  as  it  does  'em,  as  far  as  I  can  see.  But  the 
Romanies  has  got  the  Romany  Sap.  Everything  wrong 
as  you  does,  such  as  killin'  a  Romany,  or  cheatin'  a 
Romany,  or  playin'  the  lubbany  with  a  Gorgio,  or  breakin' 
your  oath  to  your  mammy  as  is  dead,  or  goin'  ag'in  the  duk- 
derin'  dook,  an'  sich  like,  every  one  o'  these  things  turns 
into  the  Romany  Sap." 

"You're  speaking  of  conscience,  Sinfi." 

"Every  one  o'  them  wrong  things  as  you  does  seems  to 
make  out  o'  the  burk  o'  the  airth  a  sap  o'  its  own  as  has 
got  its  own  pertickler  stare,  but  alius  it's  a  hungry  sap, 
Hal,  an'  a  sap  wi'  bloody  fangs.  An'  it's  a  sap  as  follows 
the  bad  un's  feet,  Hal — follows  the  bad  un's  feet  where- 
somever  they  goes ;  it's  a  sap  as  goes  slippin'  thro'  the 
dews  o'  the  grass  on  the  brightest  mornin',  and  dodges 
round  the  trees  in  the  sweetest  evenin',  an'  goes  wriggle, 
wriggle  across  the  brook  jis'  when  you  wants  to  enjoj 
yourself,  jis'  when  you  wants  to  stay  a  bit  on  the  steppin' 
stuns  to  enjoy  the  sight  o'  the  dear  little  minnows  a-shootin' 
atween  the  water-creases.  That's  what  the  Romany  Sap 
is." 

"Don't  talk  like  that,  Sinfi,"  I  said ;  "you  make  me  feel 
the  sap  myself." 

"It's  a  sap,  Hal,  as  follows  you  everywhere,  everywhere, 
till  you  feel  as  you  must  stop  an'  face  it  whatever  comes; 
an'  stop  you  do  at  last,  an'  turn  round  you  must,  an'  bare 
your  burk  you  must  to  the  sharp  teeth  o'  that  air  wene- 
mous  sap." 

*Breast. 


The  Magic  of  Snowdon  355 

"Well,  and  what  then,  Sinfi?" 

"Well  then,  when  you  ha'  given  up  to  the  thing  its  fill 
o'  your  blood,  then  the  trees,  an'  the  rocks,  an'  the  winds, 
an'  the  waters  seem  to  know,  for  everythink  seems  to  begin 
smilin'  ag'in,  an'  you're  let  to  go  on  your  way  till  you  do 
somethin'  bad  ag'in.  That's  the  Romany  Sap,  Hal,  an' 
I  won't  deny  as  1  sometimes  feel  its  bite  pretty  hard  here 
(pointing  to  her  breast)  when  I  thinks  what  I  promised 
my  poor  mammy,  an'  how  I  kep'  my  word  to  her,  when 
I  let  a  Gorgio  come  under  our  tents."* 

"You  don't  mean,"  I  said,  "that  it  is  a  real  flesh- 
and-blood  sap,  but  a  sap  that  you  think  you  see  and 
feel." 

"Hal,"  said  Sinfi,  "a  Romany's  feelin's  ain't  like  a  Gor- 
gio's.  A  Romany  can  feel  the  bite  of  a  sap  whether  it's 
made  o'  flesh  an'  blood  or  not,  and  the  Romany  Sap's  all 
the  wuss  for  not  bein'  a  flesh-and-blood  sap,  for  it's  a  cuss 
hatched  in  the  airth;  it's  everythink  a-cussin'  on  ye — the 
airth,  an'  the  sky,  an'  the  dukkerin'  dook." 

Her  manner  was  so  solemn,  her  grand  simplicity  was  so 
pathetic,  that  I  felt  I  could  not  urge  her  to  do  what  her 
conscience  told  her  was  wrong.  But  soon  that  which  no 
persuasion  of  mine  would  have  effected  the  grief  and  disap- 
pointment expressed  by  my  face  achieved. 

"Hal,"  she  said,  "I  sometimes  feel  as  if  I'd  bear  the  bite 
o'  all  the  Romany  saps  as  ever  wur  hatched  to  give  you  a 
little  comfort.  Besides,  it's  for  a  true  Romany  arter  all — 
it's  for  myself  quite  as  much  as  for  you  that  I'm  a-goin' 
to  see  whether  Winnie  is  alive  or  dead.  If  she's  dead  we 
sha'n't  see  nothink,  and  perhaps  if  she's  in  one  o'  them 
fits  o'  hern  we  sha'n't  see  nothink ;  but  if  she's  alive  and 
herself  ag'in,  I  believe  I  shall  see — p'raps  we  shall  both  see 
— her  livin'  mullo." 

She  then  drew  the  bow  across  the  crwth.  The  instru- 
ment at  first  seemed  to  chatter  with  her  agitation.  I 
waited  in  breathless  suspense.  At  last  there  came  clearly 
from  her  crwth  the  wild  air  I  had  already  heard  on  Snow- 
don. Then  the  sound  of  the  instrument  ceased  save  for 
the  drone  of  the  two  bottom  strings,  and  Sinfi's  voice  leapt 

*To  prevent  misconceptions,  it  may  be  well  to  say  that  the 
paraphrase  of  Sinfi's  description  of  the  "Romany  Sap,"  which  ap- 
peared in  the  writer's  reminiscences  of  George  Borrow,  was 
written  long  after  the  main  portion  of  the  present  narrative. 


356  Aylwin 

out  and  I  heard  the  words  of  what  she  called  the  Welsh 
dukkering  gillie. 

As  I  listened  and  looked  over  the  wide-stretching  pan- 
orama before  me,  I  felt  my  very  flesh  answering  to  every 
vibration;  and  when  the  song  stopped  and  I  suddenly 
heard  Sinfi  call  out,  "Look,  brother!"  I  felt  that  my  own 
being,  physical  and  mental,  had  passed  into  a  new  phase, 
and  that  resistance  to  some  mighty  power  governing  my 
blood  was  impossible, 

"Look  straight  afore  you,  brother,  and  you'll  see  Win- 
nie's face.  She's  alive,  brother,  and  the  dukkeripen  of  the 
Golden  Hand  will  come  true,  and  mine  will  come  true. 
Oh,  mammy,  mammy !" 

At  first  I  saw  nothing,  but  after  awhile  two  blue  eyes 
seemed  gazing  at  me  as  through  a  veil  of  evening  haze. 
They  were  looking  straight  at  me,  those  beloved  eyes — 
they  were  sparkling  with  childish  happiness  as  they  had 
sparkled  through  the  vapours  of  the  pool  when  she  walked 
towards  me  that  morning  on  the  brink  of  Knockers'  Llyn. 

Starting  up  and  throwing  up  my  arms,  I  cried,  "My 
darling!"  The  vision  vanished.  Then  turning  round,  I 
looked  at  Sinfi.  She  seemed  listening  to  a  voice  I  could 
not  hear — her  face  was  pale  with  emotion.  I  could  hear 
her  breath  coming  and  going  heavily ;  her  bosom  rose  and 
fell,  and  the  necklace  of  coral  and  gold  coins  around  her 
throat  trembled  like  a  shuddering  snake  while  she  mur- 
mured, "My  dukkeripen!  Yes,  mammy,  I've  gone  agin 
you  and  broke  my  promise,  and  this  is  the  very  Gorgio 
as  you  meant." 

"Call  the  vision  back,"  I  said;  "play  the  air  again,  dear 
Sinfi." 

She  sprang  in  front  of  me,  and  seizing  one  of  my  wrists, 
she  gazed  in  my  face,  and  said,  "Yes,  it's  'dear  Sinfi !'  You 
wants  dear  Sinfi  to  fiddle  the  Georgio's  livin'  mullo  back 
to  you." 

I  looked  into  the  dark  eyes,  lately  so  kind.  I  did  not 
know  them.  They  were  dilated  and  grown  red-brown  in 
hue,  like  the  scorched  colour  of  a  North  African  lion's  mane, 
and  along  the  eyelashes  a  phosphorescent  light  seemed  to 
play.  What  did  it  mean?  Was  it  indeed  Sinii  standing 
there,  rigid  as  a  column,  with  a  clenched  brown  fist  drawn 
up  to  the  broad,  heaving  breast,  till  the  knuckles  shone 
white,  as  if  about  to  strike  me?     What  made  her  throw 


The  Magic  of  Snowdon  357 

out  her  arms  as  if  struggling  desperately  with  the  air, 
or  with  some  unseen  foe  who  was  binding  her  with  chains  ? 
I  stood  astounded,  watching  her,  as  she  gradually  calmed 
down  and  became  herself  again;  but  I  was  deeply  per- 
plexed and  deeply  troubled. 

After  a  while  she  said,  "Let's  go  back  to  'the  Place,'  " 
and  without  waiting  for  my  acquiescence,  she  strode  along 
down  the  path  towards  Beddgelert. 

I  was  quickly  by  her  side,  but  felt  as  little  in  the  mood 
for  talking  as  she  did.  Suddenly  a  small  lizard  glided  from 
the  grass. 

"The  Romany  Sap !"  cried  Sinfi,  and  she — the  fearless 
woman  before  whom  the  stoutest  Gypsy  men  had  quailed 
— sobbed  wildly  in  terror.  She  soon  recovered  herself, 
and  said :  "What  a  fool  you  must  think  me,  Hal !  It  wur 
all  through  talkin'  about  the  Romany  Sap.  At  fust  I 
thought  it  wur  the  Romany  Sap  itself,  an'  it  wur  only  a 
poor  little  effet  arter  all.  There  ain't  a-many  things  made 
o'  flesh  and  blood  as  can  make  Sinfi  Lovell  show  the 
white  feather;  but  I  know  you'll  think  the  wuss  o'  me  arter 
this,  Hal.  But  while  the  pictur  were  a-showin'  I  heard  my 
dear  mammy's  whisper:  'Little  Sinfi,  little  Sinfi,  beware 
o'  Gorgios !    This  is  the  one.'  " 


V. 

By  the  time  we  reached  the  encampment  it  was  quite  dark. 
Panuel,  and  indeed  most  of  the  Gypsies,  had  turned  into  the 
tents  for  the  night ;  but  both  Videy  Lovell  and  Rhona  Bos- 
well  were  moving  about  as  briskly  as  though  the  time 
was  early  morning,  one  with  guile  expressed  in  every 
feature,  the  other  shedding  that  aura  of  frankness  and 
sweet  winsonieness  which  enslaved  Percy  Aylwin,  and  no 
wonder. 

Rhona  was  in  a  specially  playful  mood,  and  came  danc- 
ing round  us  more  like  a  child  of  six  than  a  young  woman 
with  a  Romany  Rye  for  a  lover. 

But  neither  Sinfi  nor  I  was  in  the  mood  for  frolic.  My 
living-waggon,  which  still  went  about  wherever  the  Lovells 


358  Aylwin 

went,  had  been  carefully  prepared  for  me  by  Rhona,  and  I 
at  once  went  into  it,  not  with  the  idea  of  getting  much 
sleep,  but  in  order  to  be  alone  with  my  thoughts.  What 
was  I  to  think  of  my  experiences  of  that  evening?  Was 
I  really  to  take  the  spectacle  that  had  seemed  to  fall  upon 
my  eyes  when  listening  to  Sinfi's  crwth,  or  rather  when  lis- 
tening to  her  song,  as  evidence  that  Winifred  was  alive? 
Oh,  if  I  could,  if  I  could!  Was  I  really  to  accept  as 
true  this  fantastic  superstition  about  the  crwth  and  the 
spirits  of  Snowdon  and  the  "living  mullo"?  That  was 
too  monstrous  a  thought  even  for  me  to  entertain.  Not- 
withstanding all  that  had  passed  in  the  long  and  dire 
struggle  between  my  reason  and  the  mysticism  inherited 
with  the  blood  of  two  lines  of  superstitious  ancestors, 
which  circumstances  had  conspired  to  foster,  my  reason 
had  only  been  bafifled  and  thwarted ;  it  had  not  really  been 
slain. 

What,  then,  could  be  the  explanation  of  the  spectacle  that 
had  seemed  to  fall  upon  my  eyes?  "It  is  hallucination,"  I 
said,  "and  it  is  the  result  of  two  very  powerful  causes — 
my  own  strong  imagination,  excited  to  a  state  of  feverish 
exaltation  by  the  long  strain  of  my  suffering,  and  that 
power  in  Sinfi  which  D'Arcy  had  described  as  her  'half- 
unconscious  power  as  a  mesmerist.'  At  a  moment  when 
my  will,  weakened  by  sorrow  and  pain,  lay  prostrate  be- 
neath my  own  fevered  imagination,  Sinfi's  voice,  so  full  of 
intense  belief  in  her  own  hallucination,  had  leapt,  as  it 
were,  into  my  consciousness  and  enslaved  my  imagination, 
which  in  turn  had  enslaved  my  will  and  my  senses." 

For  hours  I  argued  this  point  with  myself,  and  I  ended 
by  coming  to  the  conclusion  that  it  was  "my  mind's  eye" 
alone  that  saw  the  picture  of  Winifred. 

But  there  was  also  another  question  to  confront.  What 
was  the  cause  of  Sinfi's  astonishing  emotion  after  the  vision 
vanished?  Such  a  mingling  of  warring  passions  I  had 
never  seen  before.  I  tried  to  account  for  it.  I  thought 
about  it  for  hours,  and  finally  fell  asleep  without  finding 
any  solution  of  the  enigma. 

I  had  no  conversation  of  a  private  nature  with  Sinfi 
until  the  next  evening,  when  the  camp  was  on  the  move, 

"You  had  no  sleep  last  night,  Sinfi,  I  can  see  it  by  the 
dark  circles  round  your  eyes." 

"That's  nuther  here  nor  there,  brother,"  she  said. 


The  Magic  of  Snowdon  359 

I  found  to  my  surprise  that  the  Gypsies  were  preparing 
to  remove  the  camp  to  a  place  not  far  from  Bettws  y  Coed. 
I  suggested  to  Sinfi  that  we  two  should  return  to  the 
bungalow.  But  she  told  me  that  her  stay  there  had  come  to 
an  end.  The  firmness  with  which  she  made  this  announce- 
ment made  me  sure  that  there  was  no  appeal. 

"Then,"  said  I,  "my  living-waggon  will  come  into  use 
again.  The  camping  place  is  near  some  of  the  best  trout 
streams  in  the  neighbourhood,  and  I  sadly  want  some 
trout-fishing." 

"We  part  company  to-day,  brother,"  she  said.  "We 
can't  be  pals  no  more — never  no  more." 

"Sister,  I  will  not  be  parted  from  you ;  I  shall  follow  you." 

"Reia — Hal  Aylwin — you  knows  very  well  that  any  man, 
Gorgio  or  Romany,  as  followed  Sinfi  Lovell  when  she  told 
him  not,  'ud  ketch  a  body-blow  as  wouldn't  leave  him  three 
hull  ribs,  nor  a  'ounce  o'  wind  to  bless  hisself  with." 

"But  I  am  now  one  of  the  Lovells,  and  I  shall  go  with 
you.  I  am  a  Romany  myself — I  mean  I  am  becoming 
more  and  more  of  a  Romany  every  day  and  every  hour. 
The  blood  of  Fenella  Stanley  is  in  us  both." 

She  looked  at  me,  evidently  astonished  at  the  earnestness 
and  the  energy  of  my  tone.  Indeed  at  that  moment  I  felt 
an  alien  among  Gorgios. 

"I  am  now  one  of  the  Lovells,"  I  said,  "and  I  shall  go 
with  you." 

"We  part  company  to-night,  brother,  fare  ye  well,"  she 
said. 

As  she  stood  delivering  this  speech — her  head  erect, 
her  eyes  flashing  angrily  at  me,  her  brown  fists  tightly 
clenched,  I  knew  that  further  resistance  would  be  futile. 

"But  now  I  wants  to  be  left  alone,"  she  said. 

She  bent  her  head  forward  in  a  listening  attitude,  and -J 
heard  her  murmur,  "I  knowed  it  'ud  come  ag'in.  A 
Romany  sperrit  likes  to  come  up  in  the  evenin'  and  smell 
the  heather  an'  see  the  shinin'  stars  come  out." 

While  she  was  speaking,  she  began  to  move  off  between 
the  trees.  But  she  turned,  took  hold  of  both  my  hands, 
and  gazed  into  my  eyes.  Then  she  moved  away  again,  and 
I  was  beginning  to  follow  her.  She  turned  and  said: 
"Don't  follow  me.  There  ain't  no  place  for  ye  among  the 
Romanies.  Go  the  ways  o'  the  Gorgios,  Hal  Aylwin,  an' 
let  Sinfi  Lovell  go  hern." 


360  Aylwin 

As  I  leaned  against  a  tree  and  watched  Sinfi  striding 
through  the  grass  till  she  passed  out  of  sight,  the  entire 
panorama  of  my  life  passed  before  me. 

"She  has  left  me  with  a  blessing  after  all,"  I  said;  "my 
poor  Sinfi  has  taught  me  the  lesson  that  he  who  would 
fain  be  cured  of  the  disease  of  a  wasting  sorrow  must  burn 
to  ashes  Memory.  He  must  flee  Memory  and  never  look 
back." 


VI. 

And  did  I  flee  Memory  ?  When  I  re-entered  the  bungalow 
next  day  it  was  my  intention  to  leave  it  and  Wales  at  once 
and  for  ever,  and  indeed  to  leave  England  at  once — perhaps 
for  ever,  in  order  to  escape  from  the  unmanning  effect 
of  the  sorrowful  brooding  which  I  knew  had  become  a 
habit.  "I  will  now,"  I  said,  "try  the  nepenthe  that  all  my 
friends  in  their  letters  are  urging  me  to  try — I  will  travel. 
Yes,  I  will  go  to  Japan.  My  late  experiences  should  teach 
me  that  Ja'afar's  'Angel  of  Memory,'  who  refashioned  for 
him  his  dead  wife  out  of  his  own  sorrow  and  tears,  did  him 
an  ill  service.  He  who  would  fain  be  cured  of  the  disease  of 
a  wasting  sorrow  should  try  to  flee  the  'Angel  of  Memory,' 
and  never  look  back." 

And  so  fixed  was  my  mind  upon  travelling  that  I  wrote 
to  several  of  my  friends,  and  told  them  of  my  intention. 
But  I  need  scarcely  say  that  as  I  urged  them  to  keep  the 
matter  secret  it  was  talked  about  far  and  wide.  Indeed, 
as  I  afterwards  found  to  my  cost,  there  were  paragraphs 
in  the  newspapers  stating  that  the  eccentric  amateur  painter 
and  heir  of  one  branch  of  the  Aylwins  had  at  last  gone  to 
Japan,  and  that  as  his  deep  interest  in  a  certain  charming 
beauty  of  an  un-English  type  was  proverbial,  it  was 
expected  that  he  would  return  with  a  Japanese,  or  perhaps 
a  Chinese,  wife. 

But  I  did  not  go  to  Japan ;  and  what  prevented  me  ? 

My  reason  told  me  that  what  I  had  just  seen  near 
Beddgelert  was  an  optical  illusion.  I  had  become  very 
learned  in  the  subject  of  optical  illusions  ever  since  I  had 
known  Sinfi  Lovell,  and  especially  since  I  had  seen  that 
picture  of  Winnie  in  the  water  near  Bettws  y  Coed,  which 


The  Magic  of  Snowdon  361 

I  have  described  in  an  earlier  chapter.  Every  book  I 
could  get  upon  optical  illusions  I  had  read,  and  I  was 
astonished  to  find  how  many  instances  are  on  record  of 
illusions  of  a  much  more  powerful  kind  than  mine. 

And  yet  I  could  not  leave  Snowdon.  The  mountain's 
very  breath  grew  sweeter  and  sweeter  of  Winnie's  lips.  As 
I  walked  about  the  hills  I  found  myself  repeating  over  and 
over  again  one  of  the  verses  which  Winnie  used  to  sing 
to  me  as  a  child  at  Raxton. 

Eryri  fynyddig  i  mi, 

Bro  dawel  y  delyn  y\v, 
Lie  mae'r  defaid  a'r  wyu, 

Yn  y  mwswg  a'r  brwyn, 
Am  can  inau'n  esgyn  i  fyny, 

A'r  gareg  yn  ateb  i  fyny,  i  fyny, 
O'r  lie  bu'r  eryrod  yn  byw.* 

But  then  I  felt  that  Sinfi  was  the  mere  instrument  of 
the  mysterious  magic  of  y  Wyddfa,  that  magic  which  no 
other  mountain  in  Europe  exercises.  I  knew  that  among 
all  the  Gypsies,  Sinfi  was  almost  the  only  one  who  pos- 
sessed that  power  which  belonged  once  to  her  race,  that 
power  which  is  expressed  in  a  Scottish  word  now  uni- 
versally misused,  "glamour,"  the  power  which  Johnnie  Faa 
and  his  people  brought  into  play  when  they  abducted  Lady 
Casilis. 

Soon  as  they  saw  her  well-faured  lace 
They  cast  the  glamour  oure  her. ' 

"Yes,"  I  said,  "I  am  convinced  that  my  illusion  is  the  re- 
sult of  two  causes  :  my  own  brooding  over  Winnie's  tragedy 
and  the  glamour  that  Sinfi  sheds  around  her,  either  con- 
sciously or  unconsciously;  that  imperious  imagination  of 
hers  which  projects  her  own  visions  upon  the  senses  of 
another  person  either  with  or  without  an  exercise  of  her 
own  will.    This  is  the  explanation,  I  am  convinced." 

Wheresoever  I  now  went,  Snowdon's  message  to  my 
heart  was,  "She  lives,"  and  my  heart  accepted  the  message. 
And  then  the  new  blessed  feeling  that  Winnie  was  not 

*Mountain-wild  Snowdon  for  mc! 
Sweet  silence  there  for  the  harp, 
Where  loiter  the  ewes  and  the  lambs, 
In  the  moss  and  the  rushes, 
Where  one's  song  goes  sounding  up! 
And  the  rocks  re-echo  it  higher  and  higher 
In  the  heights  where  the  eagles  live. 


362  Ay  1  win 

lying  in  a  pauper  grave  had  an  effect  upon  me  that  a  few 
who  read  these  pages  will  understand — only  a  few.  Per- 
haps, indeed,  even  those  I  am  thinking  of,  those  who, 
having  lost  the  one  being  they  loved,  feel  that  the  earth 
has  lost  all  its  beauty — perhaps  even  these  may  not  be  able 
to  sympathise  fully  with  me  in  this  matter,  never  having 
had  an  experience  remotely  comparable  with  mine. 

When  I  thought  of  Winifred  lying  at  the  bottom  of  some 
chasm  in  Snowdon,  my  grief  was  very  great,  as  these  pages 
show.  Yet  it  was  not  intolerable ;  it  did  not  threaten  to  un- 
seat my  reason,  for  even  then,  when  I  knew  so  little  of 
the  magic  of  y  Wyddfa,  I  felt  how  close  was  the  connection 
between  my  darling  and  the  hills  that  knew  her  and  loved 
her.  But  during  the  time  that  her  death,  amidst  surround- 
ings too  appalling  to  contemplate,  hung  before  my  eyes  in 
a  dreadful  picture — during  the  time  when  it  seemed  certain 
that  her  death  in  a  garret,  her  burial  in  a  pauper  pit  six 
cofhns  deep,  was  a  hideous  truth  and  no  fancy,  all  the 
beauty  with  which  Nature  seemed  at  one  time  clothed  was 
wiped  away  as  by  a  sponge.  The  earth  was  nothing  more 
than  a  charnel  house,  the  skies  above  it  were  the  roof  of 
the  Palace  of  Nin-ki-gal.  But  now  that  Snowdon  had 
spoken  to  me  the  old  life  which  had  formerly  made  the 
world  so  beautiful  and  so  beloved  came  back. 

All  nature  seemed  rich  and  glowing  with  the  deep  ex- 
pectance of  my  heart.  The  sunrise  and  the  sunset  seemed 
conscious  of  Winnie,  and  the  very  birds  seemed  to  be 
warbling  at  times  "She's  alive." 


XIV. 

Sinfi's    Coup    de    Theatre 


XIV SINFI'S   COUP   DE 

THEATRE 


Weeks  passed  by.  I  visited  all  the  scenes  that  were  in  the 
least  degree  associated  with  Winnie. 

The  two  places  nearest  to  me — Fairy  Glen  and  the  Swal- 
low Falls — which  I  had  always  hitherto  avoided  on  account 
of  their  being  the  favourite  haunts  of  tourists — I  left  to  the 
last,  because  I  specially  desired  to  see  them  by  moonlight. 
With  regard  to  Fairy  Glen,  I  had  often  heard  Winnie  say 
how  she  used  to  go  there  by  moonlight  and  imagine  the 
Tylwyth  Teg  or  the  fairy  scenes  of  the  "Midsummer 
Night's  Dream"  which  I  had  told  her  of  long  ago — imagine 
them  so  vividly  that  she  could  actually  see,  on  a  certain  pro- 
jecting rock  in  the  cliffs  that  enclose  the  dell,  the  figure 
of  Titania  dressed  in  green,  with  a  wreath  of  leaves  round 
her  head.  And  with  regard  to  the  Swallow  Falls,  I  re- 
membered only  too  well  her  telling  me,  on  the  night  of 
the  landslip,  the  Welsh  legend  of  Sir  John  Wynn,  who 
died  in  the  seventeenth  century,  and  whose  ghost,  impris- 
oned at  the  bottom  of  the  Falls  on  account  of  his  ill-deeds 
in  the  flesh,  was  heard  to  shriek  amid  the  din  of  the  waters. 
On  that  fatal  night,  she  told  me  that  on  certain  rare 
occasions,  when  the  moon  shines  straight  down  the  chasm, 
the  wail  will  become  an  agonised  shriek.  I  had  often  won- 
dered what  natural  sound  this  was  which  could  afford  such 
pabulum  to  my  old  foe.  Superstition.  So  one  night,  when 
the  moon  was  shining  brilliantly — so  brilliantly  that  the 
light  seemed  very  little  feebler  than  that  of  day — I  walked 
in  the  direction  of  the  Swallow  Falls. 

Being  afraid  that  I  should  not  get  much  privacy  at  the 
Falls,  I  started  late.    But  I  came  upon  only  three  or  four 


366  Aylwin 

people  on  the  road.  I  had  forgotten  that  my  own  passion 
for  moonHght  was  entirely  a  Romany  inheritance.  I  had 
forgotten  that  a  family  of  English  tourists  will  carefully 
pull  down  the  blinds  and  close  the  shutters,  in  order  to 
enjoy  the  luxury  of  candle-light,  lamp-light,  or  gas,  when 
a  Romany  will  throw  wide  open  the  tent's  mouth  to  enjoy 
the  light  he  loves  most  of  all — "chonesko  dood,"  as  he 
calls  the  moonlight.  As  I  approached  the  Swallow  Falls 
Hotel,  I  lingered  to  let  my  fancy  feast  in  anticipation  on 
the  lovely  spectacle  that  awaited  me.  When  I  turned  into 
the  wood  I  encountered  only  one  person,  a  lady,  and  she 
hurried  back  to  the  hotel  as  soon  as  I  approached  the  river. 

Following  the  slippery  path  as  far  as  it  led  down  the  dell, 
I  stopped  at  the  brink  of  a  pool  about  a  dozen  yards, 
apparently,  from  the  bottom,  and  looked  up  at  the  water. 
Bursting  like  a  vast  belt  of  molten  silver  out  of  an  eerie 
wilderness  of  rocks  and  trees,  the  stream,  as  it  tumbled 
down  between  high  walls  of  clifif  to  the  platform  of  project- 
ing rocks  around  the  pool  at  the  edge  of  which  I  stood, 
divided  into  three  torrents,  which  themselves  were  again 
divided  and  scattered  by  projecting  boulders  into  cascades 
before  they  fell  into  the  gulf  below.  The  whole  seemed  one 
wide  cataract  of  living  moonlight  that  made  the  eyes  ache 
with  beauty. 

Amid  the  din  of  the  water  I  listened  for  the  wail  which 
had  so  deeply  impressed  Winifred,  and  certainly  there  was 
what  may  be  described  as  a  sound  within  a  sound,  which 
ears  so  attuned  to  every  note  of  Superstition's  gamut  as 
Winifred's  might  easily  accept  as  the  wail  of  Sir  John 
Wynn's  ghost. 

There  was  no  footpath  down  to  the  bottom,  but  I 
descended  without  any  great  dilBculty,  though  I  was  now 
soaked  in  spray.  Here  the  mysterious  human  sound 
seemed  to  be  less  perceptible  amid  the  din  of  the  torrent 
than  from  the  platform  where  I  had  stayed  to  listen  to  it. 
But  when  I  climbed  up  again  to  the  spot  by  the  mid-pool 
where  I  had  originally  stood,  a  strange  sensation  came  to 
me.  My  recollection  of  Winnie's  words  on  the  night  of  the 
landslip  came  upon  me  with  such  overmastering  power 
that  the  noise  of  the  cataract  seemed  changed  to  the  sound 
of  billows  tumbling  on  Raxton  sands,  and  the  "wail"  of  Sir 
John  Wynn  seemed  changed  to  that  shriek  from  Raxton 
clilT  which  appalled  Winnie  as  it  appalled  me. 


Sinfi's    Coup    de    Theatre  367 

The  following  night  I  passed  into  a  moonlight  as  bright 
as  that  which  had  played  me  such  fantastic  tricks  at  the 
Swallow  Falls. 

It  was  not  until  I  had  crossed  the  bridge  over  the 
Conway,  and  was  turning  to  the  right  in  the  direction  of 
Fairy  Glen,  that  I  fully  realised  how  romantic  the  moon- 
light was.  Every  wooded  hill  and  every  precipice,  whether 
craggy  and  bald  or  feathered  with  pines,  was  bathed  in 
light  that  would  have  made  an  Irish  bog,  or  an  Essex 
marsh,  or  an  Isle  of  Ely  fen,  a  land  of  poetry. 

When  I  reached  Pont  Llyn-yr-Afange  (Beaver  Pool 
Bridge)  I  lingered  to  look  down  the  lovely  lane  on  the  left, 
through  which  I  was  to  pass  in  order  to  reach  the  rocky 
dell  of  Fairy  Glen,  for  it  was  perfumed,  not  with  the  breath 
of  the  flowers  now  asleep,  but  with  the  perfume  I  love  most 
of  all,  the  night's  floating  memory  of  the  flowery  breath 
of  day. 

Suddenly  I  felt  some  one  touching  my  elbow.  I  turned 
round.  It  was  Rhona  Boswell.  I  was  amazed  to  see  her, 
for  I  thought  that  all  my  Gypsy  friends,  Boswells,  Lovells, 
and  the  rest,  were  still  attending  the  horse-fairs  in  the  Mid- 
lands and  Eastern  Counties. 

"We've  only  just  got  here,"  said  Rhona;  "wussur  luck 
that  we  got  here  at  all.  I  wants  to  get  back  to  dear  Gypsy 
Dell  and  Rington  Wood ;  that's  what  I  wants  to  do." 

"Where  is  the  camp?"  I  asked. 

"Same  place,  twix  Bettws  and  Capel  Curig." 

She  had  been  to  the  bungalow,  she  told  me,  with  a 
message  from  Sinfi.  This  message  was  that  she  particu- 
larly wished  to  meet  me  at  Mrs.  Davies's  cottage — "not  at 
the  bungalow" — on  the  following  night. 

"She'll  go  tliere  to-morrow  mornin',"  said  Rhona,  "and 
make  things  tidy  for  you ;  but  she  won't  expect  you  till 
night,  same  time  as  she  met  you  there  fust.  She's  got  a 
key  o'  the  door,  she  says,  wot  you  gev  her." 

I  was  not  so  surprised  at  Sinfi's  proposed  place  of  meet- 
ing as  I  should  have  been  had  I  not  remembered  her  resolu- 
tion not  to  return  to  the  bungalow,  and  not  to  let  me  return 
to  the  camp. 

"You  must  be  sure  to  go  to  meet  her  at  the  cottage 
to-morrow  night,  else  you'll  be  too  late." 

"Why  too  late?"  I  asked. 

"Well,"  said  Rhona,  "I  can't  say  as  I  knows  why  ezackly. 


368  Aylwin 

But  I  know  she's  bin  an'  bought  beautiful  dresses  at 
Chester,  or  somewheres, — an'  I  think  she's  goin'  to  be 
married  the  day  arter  to-morrow." 

"Married !  to  whom  ?" 

"Well,  I  can't  say  as  I  rightly  knows,"  said  Rhona. 

"Do  you  know  whether  Mr.  Cyril  is  in  Wales?"  I  asked. 

"Yes,"  said  Rhona,  "him  and  the  funny  un  are  not  far 
from  Capel  Curig.  Now  I  come  to  think  on't,  it's  mose 
likely  Mr.  Cyril  as  she's  goin'  to  marry,  for  I  know  it  ain't 
no  Romany  chal.  It  can't  be  the  funny  un,"  added  she, 
laughing. 

"But  where 's  the  wedding  to  take  place?" 

"I  can't  say  as  I  knows  ezackly,"  said  Rhona;  "but  I 
thinks  it's  by  Knockers'  Llyn  if  it  ain't  on  the  top  o' 
Snowdon." 

"Good  heavens,  girl !"  I  said.  "What  on  earth  makes 
you  think  that?  That  pretty  little  head  of  yours  is  stufifed 
with  the  wildest  nonsense.  I  can  make  nothing  out  of 
you,  so  good-night.    Tell  her  T'll  be  there." 

And  I  was  leaving  her  to  walk  down  the  lane  when  I 
turned  back  and  said,  "How  long  has  Sinfi  been  at  the 
camp?" 

"On'y  jist  come.  She's  bin  away  from  us  for  a  long 
while,"  said  Rhona. 

And  then  she  looked  as  if  she  was  tempted  to  reveal 
some  secret  that  she  was  bound  not  to  tell. 

"Sinfi's  been  very  bad,"  she  went  on,  "but  she's  better 
now.  Her  daddy  says  she's  under  a  cuss.  She's  been 
a  wastin'  away  like,  but  she's  better  now." 

"So  it's  Sinfi  who  is  under  a  curse  now,"  I  said  to  myself. 
"I  suppose  Superstition  has  at  last  turned  her  brain.  This 
perhaps  explains  Rhona's  mad  story." 

"Does  anybody  but  you  think  she's  going  to  be  mar- 
ried?" I  asked  her.     "Does  her  father  think  so?" 

"Her  daddy  says  it  ain't  Sinfi  as  is  goin'  to  be  married ; 
but  /  think  it's  Sinfi !  An'  you'll  know  all  about  it  the  day 
arter  to-morrow."  And  she  tripped  away  in  the  direction 
of  the  camp. 

Lost  in  a  whirl  of  thoughts  and  speculations,  I  turned 
into  Fairy  Glen.  And  now,  below  me,  lay  the  rocky  dell 
so  dearly  beloved  by  Winnie ;  and  there  I  walked  in  such 
a  magic  web  of  light  and  shade  as  can  only  be  seen  in  that 
glen  when  the  moon  hangs  over  it  in  a  certain  position. 


Sinfi's    Coup    de    Theatre  369 

I  descended  the  steps  to  the  stream  and  sat  down  for  a 
time  on  one  of  the  great  boulders  and  asked  myself  if  this 
was  the  very  boulder  on  which  Winnie  used  to  sit  when 
she  conjured  up  her  childish  visions  of  fairyland.  And  by 
that  sweet  thought  the  beauty  of  the  scene  became  intensi- 
fied. There,  while  the  unbroken  torrent  of  the  Conway — 
glittering  along  the  narrow  gorge  of  the  glen  between 
silvered  walls  of  rock  as  upright  as  the  turreted  bastions  of 
a  castle — seemed  to  flash  a  kind  of  phosphorescent  light  of 
its  own  upon  the  flowers  and  plants  and  sparsely  scattered 
trees  along  the  sides,  I  sat  and  passed  into  Winifred's  own 
dream,  and  the  Tylwyth  Teg,  which  to  Winnie  represented 
Oberon  and  Titania  and  the  whole  group  of  fairies,  swept 
before  me. 

Awaking  from  this  dream,  I  looked  up  the  wall  of  the 
clifif  to  enjoy  one  more  sight  of  the  magical  beauty,  when 
there  fell  upon  my  eyes,  or  seemed  to  fall,  a  sight  that, 
though  I  felt  it  must  be  a  delusion,  took  away  my  breath. 
Standing  on  a  piece  of  rock  that  was  fiush  with  one  of 
the  steps  by  which  I  had  descended  was  a  slender  girlish 
figure,  so  lissome  that  it  might  have  been  the  famous 
"Queen  of  the  Fair  People." 

"Never,"  I  said  to  myself,  "was  there  an  optical  illusion 
so  perfect.  I  can  see  the  moonlight  playing  upon  her 
hair.  But  the  hair  is  not  golden,  as  the  hair  of  the 
Queen  of  the  Tylwyth  Teg  should  be ;  it  is  dark  as  Win- 
nie's own." 

Then  the  face  turned  and  she  looked  at  the  river,  and 
then  I  exclaimed  "Winifred!"  And  then  Fairy  Glen  van- 
ished and  I  was  at  Raxton  standing  by  a  cottage  door  in 
the  moonlight.  I  was  listening  to  a  voice — that  one  voice 
to  whose  music  every  chord  of  life  within  me  was  set  for- 
ever, which  said : 

"I  should  have  to  come  in  the  winds,  and  play  around  you 
on  the  sands.  I  should  have  to  peep  over  the  clouds  and 
watch  you.  I  should  have  to  follow  you  about  wherever 
you  went." 

The  sight  vanished.  Although  I  had  no  doubt  that  what 
I  had  seen  was  an  hallucination,  when  I  moved  further  on 
and  stood  and  gazed  at  the  stream  as  it  went  winding- 
round  the  mossy  clififs  to  join  the  Lledr,  I  felt  that  Winnie 
was  by  my  side,  her  hand  in  mine,  and  that  we  were  chil- 


37°  Aylwin 

dren  together.  And  when  I  mounted  the  steps  and  strolled 
along  the  path  that  leads  to  the  plantation  where  the  moon- 
light, falling  through  the  leaves,  covered  the  ground  with 
what  seemed  symbolical  arabesques  of  silver  and  grey  and 
purple,  I  felt  the  pressure  of  little  fingers  that  seemed  to 
express  "How  beautiful !"  And  when  I  stood  gazing 
through  the  opening  in  the  landscape,  and  saw  the  rocks 
gleaming  in  the  distance  and  the  water  down  the  Lledr 
valley,  I  saw  the  sweet  young  face  gazing  in  mine  with 
the  smile  of  the  delight  that  illumined  it  on  the  Wilderness 
road  when  she  discoursed  of  birds  and  the  wind. 

The  vividness  of  the  vision  of  Fairy  Glen  drove  out  for 
a  time  all  other  thoughts.  The  livelong  night  my  brain 
seemed  filled  with  it. 

"My  eyes  are  made  the  fools  o'  the  other  senses, 
Or  else  worth  all  the  rest," 

I  said  to  myself  as  I  lay  awake.  So  full,  indeed,  was  my 
mind  of  this  one  subject  that  even  Rhona's  strange  mes- 
sage from  Sinfi  was  only  recalled  at  intervals.  While  I 
was  breakfasting,  however,  this  incident  came  fully  back 
to  me.  Either  Rhona's  chatter  about  Sinfi's  reason  for 
wanting  to  see  me  was  the  nonsense  that  had  floated  into 
Rhona's  own  brain,  the  brain  of  a  love-sick  girl  to  whom 
everything  spelt  marriage — or  else  poor  Sinfi's  mind  had 
become  unhinged. 


II. 

As  I  was  to  sleep  at  the  cottage,  and  as  I  knew  not  what 
part  I  might  have  to  play  in  Sinfi's  wild  frolic,  I  told  the 
servants  that  any  letters  which  might  reach  the  bungalow 
next  morning  w^ere  to  be  sent  at  once  to  the  cottage, 
should  I  not  have  returned  thence. 

At  about  the  hour,  as  far  as  I  could  guess,  when  I  had 
first  knocked  at  the  cottage  door,  at  the  beginning  of  my 
search  for  Winnie,  I  stood  there  again.  The  door  was  on 
the  latch.     I  pushed  it  open. 

The  scene  I  then  saw  was  so  exact  a  repetition  of  what 
h?A  met  my  eyes  when  for  the  first  time  I  passed  under 


Sinfi's    Coup    de    Theatre  371 

that  roof  that  it  did  not  seem  as  though  it  could  be  real ; 
it  seemed  as  though  it  must  be  a  freak  of  memory :  the 
same  long,  low,  room,  the  same  heavy  beams  across  the 
ceiling,  the  same  three  chairs,  standing  in  the  same  places 
where  they  stood  then,  the  same  table,  and  upon  it  the 
crwth  and  bow.  There  was  a  brisk  fire,  and  over  it  hung 
the  kettle — the  same  kettle  as  then.  There  were  on  the 
walls  the  same  pictures,  with  the  ruddy  fingers  of  the  fire- 
gleam  playing  upon  them  and  illuminating  them  in  the 
same  pathetic  way,  and  in  front  of  the  fire,  sitting  upon  the 
same  chair,  was  a  youthful  female  figure — not  Winnie's 
figure,  taller  than  hers,  and  grander  than  hers — the  figure 
of  Sinfi,  her  elbows  resting  upon  her  knees,  and  her  face 
sunk  meditatively  between  her  hands. 

After  standing  for  fully  half  a  minute  gazing  at  her,  I 
went  up  to  her,  and  laying  my  hand  upon  her  shoulder, 
I  said,  "This  is  a  good  sight  for  the  Swimming  Rei, 
Sinfi." 

At  the  touch  of  my  hand  a  thrill  seemed  to  dart  through 
her  frame;  she  leaped  up  and  stared  wildly  in  my  face. 
Her  features  became  contorted  with  terror — as  horribly 
contorted  as  Winnie's  had  been  in  the  same  spot  and  under 
the  same  circumstances.  Exactly  the  same  terrible  words 
fell  upon  my  ear : — 

"Let  his  children  be  vagabonds  and  beg  their  bread ; 
let  them  seek  it  also  out  of  desolate  places.  So  saith  the 
Lord.    Amen." 

Then  she  fell  on  the  floor  insensible. 

At  first  I  was  too  astonished,  awed,  and  bewildered 
to  stir  from  the  spot  where  I  was  standing.  Then  I  knelt 
down,  and  raising  her  shoulders,  placed  her  head  on  my 
knee.  For  a  time  the  expression  of  horror  on  her  pale 
features  was  fixed  as  though  graven  in  marble.  A  jug  of 
water,  from  which  the  kettle  had  been  supplied,  stood  on 
the  floor  in  the  recess.  I  sprinkled  some  water  over  her 
face.  The  muscles  relaxed,  she  opened  her  eyes ;  the 
seizure  had  passed.  She  recognised  me,  and  at  once 
the  old  brave  smile  I  knew  so  well  passed  over  her  face. 
Rhona's  words  about  the  curse  and  the  purchase  of  the 
dresses  seemed  explained  now.  Long  brooding  over  Win- 
nie's terrible  fate  had  unhinged  her  mind. 

"My  girl,  my  brave  girl."  I  said,  "have  you,  then,  felt 
our  sorrow  so  deeply?     Have  you  so  fully  shared  poor 


372  Aylwin 

Winnie's  pain  that  your  nerves  have  given  way  at  last? 
You  are  suffering  through  sympathy,  Sinfi ;  you  are  suffer- 
ing poor  Winnie's  great  martyrdom." 

"Oh,  it  ain't  that!"  she  said,  "but  how  I  must  have 
skeared  you !" 

She  got  up  and  sat  upon  the  chair  in  a  much  more 
vigorous  way  than  I  could  have  expected  after  such  a 
seizure. 

"I  am  so  sorry,"  she  said.  "It  was  the  sudden  feel  o' 
your  hand  on  my  shoulder  that  done  it.  It  seemed  to  burn 
me  like,  and  then  it  made  my  blood  seem  scaldin'  hot.  If 
I'd  only  'a'  seed  you  come  through  the  door  I  shouldn't 
have  had  the  fit.  The  doctor  told  me  the  fits  wur  all 
gone  now,  and  I  feel  sure  as  this  is  the  last  on  'em.  You 
must  go  to  Knockers'  Llyn  with  me  to-morrow  mornin' 
early.  I  want  you  to  go  at  the  same  time  that  we  started 
when  we  tried  that  mornin'  to  find  Winnie." 

"Then  Rhona's  story  is  true,"  I  thought.  "Her  delusion 
is  that  she  is  going  to  Knockers'  Llyn  to  be  married." 

"The  weather's  goin'  to  be  just  the  same  as  it  was  then," 
she  said,  "and  when  we  get  to  Knockers'  Llyn  where  you 
two  breakfasted  together,  I  want  to  play  the  crwth  and 
sing  the  song  just  as  I  did  then." 

She  made  no  allusion  to  a  wedding.  Getting  up  and 
pouring  the  boiling  water  from  the  kettle  into  the  tea- 
pot, "Something  tells  me,"  she  went  on,  "that  when  I  touch 
my  crwth  to-morrow,  and  when  I  sing  them  words  by  the 
side  of  Knockers'  Llyn,  you'll  see  the  picture  you  want 
to  see,  the  livin'  mullo  o'  Winnie." 

"Still  no  allusion  to  a  wedding,  but  no  doubt  that  will 
soon  come,"  I  murmured. 

"I  want  to  go  the  same  way  we  went  that  day,  and  I 
want  for  you  and  me  to  see  everythink  as  we  seed  it  then 
from  fust  to  last." 

I  was  haunted  by  Rhona  Boswell's  words,  and  wondered 
when  she  would  begin  talking  about  the  wedding  at 
Knockers'  Llyn. 

She  never  once  alluded  to  it;  but  at  intervals  when  the 
talk  between  us  flagged  I  could  hear  her  muttering,  "He 
must  see  everythink  just  as  he  seed  it  then  from  fust  to 
last,  an'  then  it's  good-bye  forever." 

At  last  she  said,  "I've  had  both  the  rooms  upstairs  made 


Sinfi's    Coup    de    Theatre  373 

tidy  to  sleep  in — one  for  you  and  one  for  me.    I'll  call  you 
in  the  mornin'  at  the  proper  time.     Good  night." 

I  was  not  sorry  to  get  this  summary  dismissal  and  be 
alone  with  my  thoughts.  When  I  got  to  bed  I  was  kept 
awake  by  recalling  the  sight  I  saw  on  entering  the  cottage. 
There  seemed  no  other  explanation  of  it  than  this,  the 
tragedy  of  Winifred  had  touched  Sinfi's  sympathetic  soul 
too  deeply.  Her  imagination  had  seized  upon  the  spectacle 
of  Winifred  in  one  of  her  fits,  and  had  caused  so  serious  a 
disturbance  of  her  nervous  system  that  through  sheer  fas- 
cination of  repulsion  her  face  mimicked  it  exactly  as  Wini- 
fred's face  had  mimicked  the  original  spectacle  of  horror  on 
the  sands. 


III. 

It  was  not  yet  dawn  when  I  was  aroused  from  the  fitful 
slumber  into  which  I  had  at  last  fallen  by  a  sharp  knocking 
at  the  door.  When  I  answered  the  summons  by  ''All  right, 
Sinfi,"  and  heard  her  footsteps  descend  the  stairs,  the  words 
of  Rhona  Boswell  again  came  to  me. 

I  found  that  I  must  return  to  the  bungalow  to  get  my 
bath. 

The  startled  servant  who  let  me  in  asked  if  there  was 
anything  the  matter.  I  explained  my  early  rising  by  tell- 
ing him  that  I  was  merely  going  to  Knockers'  Llyn  to  see 
the  sunrise.  He  gave  me  a  letter  which  had  come  on  the 
previous  evening,  and  had  been  addressed  by  mistake  to 
Carnarvon.  As  the  handwriting  was  new  to  me,  I  felt  sure 
that  it  was  only  an  unimportant  missive  from  some  stranger, 
and  I  put  it  into  my  pocket  without  opening  it. 

On  my  return  I  found  Sinfi  in  the  little  room  where  we 
had  supped.  I  guessed  that  an  essential  part  of  her  crazy 
project  was  that  we  should  breakfast  at  the  llyn. 

On  the  table  was  a  basket  filled  with  the  materials  for  the 
breakfast. 

Another  breakfast  was  spread  for  us  two  on  the  table, 
and  the  teapot  was  steaming.  Sinfi  saw  me  look  at  the  two 
breakfasts  and  smile. 

"We've  got  a  good  way  to  walk  before  we  get  to  the  pool 


374  Aylwin 

where  we  are  goin'  to  breakfast,"  she  said,  "so  I  thought 
we'd  take  a  snack  before  we  start." 

As  we  went  along  I  noticed  that  the  air  of  Snowdon 
seemed  to  have  its  usual  effect  on  Sinfi.  In  taking  the  path 
that  led  to  Knockers'  Llyn  we  saw  before  us  Cwm-Dyli,  the 
wildest  of  all  the  Snowdonian  recesses,  surrounded  by 
frowning  precipices  of  great  height  and  steepness.  We  then 
walked  briskly  on  towards  our  goal.  When  the  three  peaks 
that  she  knew  so  well — y  Wyddfa,  Lliwedd,  and  Crib  Goch 
— stood  out  in  the  still  grey  light  she  stopped,  set  down  her 
basket,  clapped  her  hands,  and  said,  "Didn't  I  tell  you  the 
mornin'  was  a-goin'  to  be  ezackly  the  same  as  then?  No 
mists  to-day.  By  the  time  w^e  get  to  the  llyn  the  colours  o' 
the  vapours,  what  they  calls  the  Knockers'  flags,  will  come 
out  ezackly  as  they  did  that  mornin'  when  you  and  me  first 
went  arter  Winnie." 

All  the  way  Sinfi's  eyes  were  fixed  on  the  majestic  fore- 
head of  y  Wyddfa  and  the  bastions  of  Lliwedd,  which 
seemed  to  guard  it  as  though  the  Great  Spirit  of  Snowdon 
himself  was  speaking  to  her  and  drawing  her  on,  and  she 
kept  murmuring  "The  two  dukkeripens." 

But  still  she  said  nothing  about  her  wedding,  though  that 
some  such  mad  idea  as  that  suggested  by  Rhona  possessed 
her  mind  was  manifest  enough. 

"Here  we  are  at  last,"  she  said,  when  we  reached  the  pool 
for  which  we  were  bound ;  and  setting  down  her  little  basket 
she  stood  and  looked  over  to  the  valley  beneath. 

The  colours  were  coming  more  quickly  every  minute, 
and  the  entire  picture  was  exactly  the  same  as  that  which 
I  had  seen  on  the  morning  when  we  last  saw  Winifred  on 
the  hills — so  unlike  the  misty  drama  that  Snowdon  mostly 
presents.  Y  Wyddfa  was  silhouetted  against  the  sky,  and 
looked  as  narrow  and  as  steep  as  the  sides  of  an  acorn.  Here 
we  halted  and  set  down  our  basket. 

As  we  did  so  she  said,  "Hark !  the  Knockers !  Don't  you 
hear  them?    Listen,  listen!" 

I  did  listen,  and  I  seemed  to  hear  a  peculiar  sound  as  of  a 
distant  knocking  against  the  rocks  by  some  soft  substance. 
She  saw  that  I  heard  the  noise. 

"That's  the  Snowdon  spirits  as  guards  more  copper  mines 
than  ever  vet's  been  found.    And  they're  dwarfs,    I've  seed 


Sinfi's    Coup    de    Theatre  375 

'em,  and  Winnie  has.  They're  Httle,  fat,  short  folk,  some- 
thin'  like  the  woman  in  Primrose  Court,  only  littler.  Don't 
you  mind  the  gal  in  the  court  said  Winnie  used  to  call  the 
woman  Knocker?  Sometimes  they  knock  to  show  to  some 
Taffy  as  has  pleased  'em  where  the  veins  of  copper  may  be 
found,  and  sometimes  they  knock  to  give  warnin'  of  a  dan- 
gerous precipuss,  and  sometimes  they  knock  to  give  the 
person  as  is  talkin'  warnin'  that  he's  sayin'  or  doin'  some- 
thin'  as  may  lead  to  danger.  They  speaks  to  each  other 
too,  but  in  a  vi'ce  so  low  that  you  can't  tell  what  words 
they're  a-speakin',  even  if  you  knew  their  language.  My 
crwth  and  song  will  rouse  every  spirit  on  the  hills." 

I  listened  again.  This  was  the  mysterious  sound  that  had 
so  captivated  Winnie's  imagination  as  a  child. 

The  extraordinary  lustre  of  Sinli's  eyes  indicated  to  me, 
who  knew  them  so  well,  that  every  nerve,  every  fibre  in  her 
system,  was  trembling  under  the  stress  of  some  intense 
emotion.  I  stood  and  watched  her,  wondering  as  to  her 
condition,  and  speculating  as  to  what  her  crazy  project 
could  be. 

Then  she  proceeded  to  unpack  the  little  basket. 

"This  is  for  the  love  feast,"  said  Sinfi. 

"You  mean  betrothal  feast,"  I  said.  "But  who  are  the 
lovers?" 

"You  and  the  livin'  mullo  that  you  made  me  draw  for  you 
by  my  crwth  down  by  Beddgelert — the  livin'  mullo  o' 
Winnie  Wynne." 

"At  last  then,"  I  said  to  myself,  "I  know  the  form  the 
mania  has  taken.  It  is  not  her  own  betrothal,  but  mine  with 
Winnie's  wraith,  that  is  deluding  her  crazy  brain.  How 
well  I  remember  telling  her  how  I  had  promised  Winnie  as 
a  child  to  be  betrothed  by  Knockers'  Llyn.  Poor  Sinfi ! 
Mad  or  sane,  her  generosity  remains  undimmed." 

Before  the  breakfast  cloth  could  be  laid — indeed  before 
the  basket  was  unpacked — she  asked  me  to  look  at  my 
watch,  and  on  my  doing  so  and  telling  her  the  time,  she 
jumped  up  and  said,  "It's  later  than  I  thought.  We  must 
lay  the  cloth  arterwards."  She  then  placed  me  in  that  same 
crevice  overlooking  the  tarn  whence  Winnie  had  come  to 
me  on  that  morning. 

Knockers'  Llyn,  it  will  perhaps  be  remembered,  is  en- 
closed in  a  little  gorge  opening  by  a  broken,  ragged  fissure 
at  the  back  tc  !;he  east.     Leading  to  this  opening  there  is 


3  7^  Aylwin 

on  one  side  a  narrow,  jagged  shelf  which  runs  half-way 
round  the  pool,  Sinfi's  movements  now  were  an  exact  repe- 
tition of  everything  she  did  on  that  first  morning  of  our 
search  for  Winnie. 

While  I  stood  partially  concealed  in  my  crevice,  Sinfi 
took  up  her  crwth,  which  was  lying  on  the  rock. 

"What  are  you  going  to  do,  Sinfi?"  I  said. 

"I'm  just  goin'  to  bring  back  old  times  for  you.  You  re- 
member that  mornin'  when  my  crwth  and  song  called  Win- 
nie to  us  at  this  very  llyn?  I'm  goin'  to  play  on  my  crwth 
and  sing  the  same  song  now.  It's  to  draw  her  livin'  mullo, 
as  I  did  at  Bettws  and  Beddgelert,  so  that  the  dukkeripen 
of  the  'Golden  Hand'  may  come  true." 

"But  how  can  it  come  true,  Sinfi?"  I  said. 

"The  dukkeripen  alius  does  come  true,  whether  it's  good 
or  whether  it's  bad." 

"Not  always,"  I  said. 

"No,  not  alius,"  she  cried,  starting  up,  while  there  came 
over  her  face  that  expression  which  had  so  amazed  me  at 
Beddgelert.  When  at  last  breath  came  to  her  she  was  look- 
ing towards  y  Wyddfa  through  the  kindling  haze. 

"There  you're  right,  Hal  Aylwin.  It  ain't  every  duk- 
keripen as  comes  true.  The  dukkeripen  alius  comes  true, 
unless  it's  one  as  says  a  Gorgio  shall  come- to  the  Kaulo 
Camloes  an'  break  Sinfi  Lovell's  heart.  Before  that  duk- 
keripen shall  come  true  Sinfi  Lovell  'ud  cut  her  heart  out. 
Yes,  my  fine  Gorgio,  she'd  cut  it  out — she'd  cut  it  out  and 
fling  it  in  that  'ere  llyn.  She  did  cut  it  out  when  she  took 
the  cuss  on  herself.    She's  a-cuttin'  it  out  now." 

Then  without  saying  another  word  Sinfi  took  up  her 
crwth  and  moved  towards  the  llyn. 

"You'll  soon  come  back,  Sinfi?"  I  said. 

"We've  got  to  see  about  that,"  she  replied,  still  pale  and 
trembling  from  the  effects  of  that  sudden  upheaval  of  the 
passion  of  a  Titaness.  "If  the  livin'  mullo  does  come  you 
can't  have  a  love-feast  without  company,  you  know,  and  I 
sha'n't  be  far  off  if  you  find  you  want  me." 

She  then  took  up  her  crwth,  went  round  the  llyn,  and  dis- 
appeared through  the  eastern  cleft.  In  a  few  minutes  I 
heard  her  crwth.  But  the  air  she  played  was  not  the  air  of 
the  song  she  called  the  "Welsh  dukkerin'  gilly  which  I  had 
heard  by  Beddgelert."  It  was  the  air  of  the  same  idyll  of 
Snowdon  that  I  first  heard  Winifred  sing  on  the  sands  of 


Sinfi's    Coup    de    Theatre  377 

Raxton.  Then  I  heard  in  the  distance  those  echoes,  magi- 
cal and  faint,  which  were  attributed  by  Winifred  and  Sinfi 
to  the  Knockers  or  spirits  of  Snowdon, 


IV. 

There  I  stood  again,  as  on  that  other  morning,  in  the 
crevice  overlooking  the  same  llyn,  looking  at  what  might 
well  have  been  the  same  masses  of  vapour  enveloping  the 
same  peaks,  rolling  as  then,  boiling  as  then,  blazing  as  then, 
whenever  the  bright  shafts  of  morning  struck  them.  There 
I  stood  again,  listening  to  the  wild  notes  of  Sinfi's  crwth  in 
the  distance,  as  the  sun  rose  higher,  pouring  a  radiance 
through  the  eastern  gate  of  the  gorge,  and  kindling  the 
aerial  vapours  moving  about  the  llyn  till  their  iridescent 
sails  suggested  the  wings  of  some  enormous  dragon-fly  of 
every  hue.  * 

"Her  song  does  not  come,"  I  said,  "but,  this  time,  when 
it  does  come,  it  will  not  befool  my  senses.  Sinfi's  own  pres- 
ence by  my  side — that  magnetism  of  her,  which  D'Arcy 
spoke  of — would  be  required  before  the  glamour  could  be 
cast  over  me,  now  that  I  know  she  is  crazy.  Poor  Sinfi ! 
Her  influence  will  not  to-day  be  able  to  cajole  my  eyes  into 
accepting  her  superstitious  visions  as  their  own." 

But  as  I  spoke  a  sound  fell,  not  upon  my  ears  alone,  but 
upon  every  nerve  of  my  body,  the  sound  of  a  voice  singing 
— a  voice  that  was  not  Sinfi's,  but  another's : 

I  met  in  a  gale  a  lone  little  maid 

At  the  foot  of  y  Wyddfa  the  white; 
Oh,  lissome  her  feet  as  the  mountain  hind 

And  darker  her  hair  than  the  night; 
Her  cheek  was  like  the  mountain  rose, 

But  fairer  far  to  see. 
As  driving  along  her  sheep  with  a  song 

Down  from  the  hills  came  she. 

It  was  the  same  voice  that  I  heard  singing  the  same  song  on 
Raxton  Sands.  It  was  the  same  voice  that  I  heard  singing 
the  same  song  in  the  London  streets — Winnie's ! 

And,  then  there  appeared  in  the  eastern  cleft  of  the 
gorge,  at  the  other  side  of  the  llyn,  illuminated  as  by  a  rosy 


37^  Aylwin 

steam,  Winnie !  Amid  the  opalescent  vapours  gleaming 
round  the  llyn,  with  eyes  now  shimmering  as  through  a 
veil — now  flashing  like  sapphires  in  the  sun — there  she 
stood  gazing  through  the  film,  her  eyes  expressing  a  sur- 
prise and  a  wonder  as  great  as  my  own. 

"It  is  no  phantasm — it  is  no  hallucination,"  I  said,  while 
my  breathing  had  become  a  spasmodic,  choking  gasp. 

But  when  I  remembered  the  vision  of  Fairy  Glen,  I  said : 
"Imagination  can  do  that,  and  so  can  the  glamour  cast  over 
me  by  Sinfi's  music.  It  does  not  vanish ;  ah,  if  the  sweet 
madness  should  remain  with  me  for  ever !  It  does  not 
vanish — it  is  gliding  along  the  side  of  the  llyn :  it  is  moving 
towards  me.  And  now  those  sudden  little  ripples  in  the 
llyn — what  do  they  mean?  The  trout  are  flying  from  her 
shadow.  The  feet  are  grating  on  the  stones.  And  hark ! 
that  pebble  which  falls  into  the  water  with  a  splash ;  the 
glassy  llyn  is  ribbed  and  rippled  with  rings.  Can  a  phantom 
do  that?    It  comes  towards  me  still.    Hallucination!" 

Still  the  vision  came  on.  , 

When  I  felt  the  touch  of  her  body,  when  I  felt  myself 
clasped  in  soft  arms,  and  felt  falling  on  my  face  warm  tears, 
and  on  my  lips  the  pressure  of  Winnie's  lips — lips  that  were 
murmuring,  "At  last,  at  last !" — a  strange,  wild  effect  was 
worked  within  me.  The  reality  of  the  beloved  form  now 
in  my  arms  declared  itself ;  it  brought  back  the  scene  where 
I  had  last  clasped  it. 

Snowdon  had  vanished ;  the  brilliant  morning  sun  had 
vanished.  The  moon  was  shining  on  a  cottage  near  Rax- 
ton  Church,  and  at  the  door  two  lovers  were  standing,  wet 
with  the  sea-water — with  the  sea-water  through  which  they 
had  just  waded.  All  the  misery  that  had  followed  was 
wiped  out  of  my  brain.  It  had  not  even  the  cobweb  con- 
sistence of  a  dream. 

When,  after  a  while,  Snowdon  and  the  drama  of  the  pres- 
ent came  back  to  me,  my  brain  was  in  such  a  marvellous 
state  that  it  held  two  pictures  of  the  same  Winnie  as  though 
each  hemisphere  of  the  brain  were  occupied  with  its  own 
vision.  I  was  kissing  Winnie's  sea-salt  lips  in  the  light  of 
the  moon  at  the  cottage  door,  and  I  was  kissing  them  in 
the  morning  radiance  by  Knockers'  Llyn.  And  yet  so  over- 
whelming was  the  mighty  tide  of  bliss  overflowing  my  soul 


Sinfi's    Coup    de    Theatre  379 

that  there  was  no  room  within  me  for  any  other  emotion — 
no  room  for  curiosity,  no  room  even  for  wonder. 

Like  a  spirit  awakening  in  Paradise,  I  accepted  the 
heaven  in  which  I  found  myself,  and  did  not  inquire  how  I 
got  there. 

This  did  not  last  long,  however.  Suddenly  and  sharply 
the  moonlight  scene  vanished,  and  I  was  on  Snowdon,  and 
there  came  a  burning  curiosity  to  know  the  meaning  of  this 
new  life — the  meaning  of  the  life  of  pain  that  had  followed 
the  parting  at  the  cottage  door. 


V. 

"Winnie,"  I  said,  "tell  me  where  we  are.  I  have  been  very 
ill  since  we  parted  in  your  father's  cottage.  I  have  had  the 
wildest  hallucinations  concerning  you ;  dreams,  intolerable 
dreams.  And  even  now  they  hang  about  me;  even  now  it 
seems  to  me  that  we  are  far  away  from  Raxton,  surrounded 
by  the  hills  and  peaks  of  Snowdon.  If  they  were  real  you 
would  be  the  dream,  but  you  are  real ;  this  waist  is  real." 

"Of  course  we  are  on  Snowdon,  Henry  !"  said  she.  "You 
must  indeed  have  been  ill — you  must  now  be  very  ill — to 
suppose  you  are  at  Raxton." 

"But  what  are  we  doing  here?"  I  said.  "How  did  we 
come  here?" 

"Let  Badoura  speak  for  herself  only,"  she  said,  with  that 
arch  smile  of  hers.  She  was  alluding  to  the  old  days  at 
Raxton,  when  she  hoped  that  some  day  her  little  Camaral- 
zaman  would  be  carried  by  genii  to  her  as  she  sat  thinking 
of  him  by  the  magic  llyn.  "The  genie  who  brought  me 
was  Sinfi  Lovell.  But  who  brought  Camaralzaman?  That 
is  a  question,"  she  said,  "I  am  dying  to  have  answered." 

At  the  name  of  Sinfi  Lovell  the  past  came  flowing  in. 

"Then  there  is  a  Sinfi  Lovell,  Winnie !  And  yet  she  is 
one  of  the  figures  in  the  dream.  There  was  no  Sinfi  Lovell 
w-ith  us  at  Raxton." 

"Of  course  there  is  a  Sinfi  Lovell !  You  begin  to  make 
me  as  dazed  as  yourself.  You  have  known  her  well ;  you 
and  she  were  seeking  me  when  I  was  lost." 

"Then  you  were  lost?"  I  said.    "That,  then,  is  no  dream. 


380  Aylwin 

And  yet  if  you  were  lost  you  have  been But  you  are 

alive,  Winnie.  Let  me  feel  the  lips  on  mine  again.  You 
are  alive.  Snowdon  told  me  at  last  that  you  were  alive,  but 
I  dared  not  believe  it,  my  darling.  I  dared  not  believe  that 
my  misery  would  end  thus — thus." 

There  came  upon  her  face  an  expression  of  distressed  per- 
plexity which  did  more  than  anything  else  to  recall  me  to 
my  senses. 

"Winnie,"  I  said,  "my  brain  is  whirling.  Let  us  sit 
down." 

She  sat  down  by  my  side. 

"You  thought  your  Winnie  was  dead,  Henry.  Sinfii 
Lovell  has  told  me  all  about  it."  Then,  looking  intently  at 
me,  she  said,  "And  how  your  sorrow  has  changed  you, 
dear!" 

"You  mean  it  has  aged  me,  Winnie.  I  have  observed  it 
myself,  and  people  tell  me  it  has  made  me  look  older  than 
I  am  by  many  years.  These  furrows  around  the  eyes — 
these  furrows  on  my  brow — you  are  kissing  them,  dear." 

"Oh!  I  love  them;  how  I  love  them!"  she  said.  "I  am 
not  kissing  them  to  smooth  them  away.  To  me  every  line 
tells  of  your  love  for  Winnie." 

"And  the  hair,  Winnie — look,  it  is  getting  quite  grizzled." 
Then,  as  the  lovely  head  sank  upon  my  breast,  I  whispered 
in  her  ears,  "Is  there  at  last  sorrow  enough  in  the  eyes, 
Winnie?  Has  the  hardening  effect  of  wealth  coarsened  my 
expression?  Can  a  rich  man  for  once  enter  the  kingdom 
of  love?  Is  the  betrothal  now  complete?  Are  we  both  be- 
trothed now?" 

I  stopped,  for  bliss  and  love  were  convulsing  her  with 
sobs,  until  you  might  have  supposed  her  heart  was  breaking. 


While  she  lay  silent  thus,  I  was  able  in  some  degree  to 
call  my  wits  around  me.  And  the  difficulty  of  knowing  in 
what  course  I  ought  to  direct  conversation  presented  itself, 
and  seemed  to  numb  my  faculties  and  paralyse  me. 

After  a  while  she  became  more  composed,  and  sat  in  a 
trance,  so  to  speak,  of  happiness. 

But  she  remained  silent.  The  conversation,  I  perceived, 
would  have  to  be  directed  entirely  by  me.  With  the  appall- 
ing seizures  ever  present  in  my  mind,  I  felt  that  every  word 
that  came  from  my  lips  was  dangerous. 


Sinfi's    Coup    de    Theatre  381 

"Look,"  I  said,  "the  colours  of  the  vapours  round  the 
llyn  are  as  rich  as  they  were  when  we  breakfasted  here 
together." 

*"We  breakfasted  here  together !  Why,  what  do  you 
mean?"  she  said,  looking  in  my  face.  "You  forget,  Henry, 
you  never  knew  me  in  Wales  at  all ;  it  was  only  at  Raxton 
that  you  ever  saw  me." 

"I  mean  when  you  breakfasted  with  the  Prince  of  the 
Mist.    I  was  the  Prince  of  the  Mist,  dear." 

She  gave  me  a  puzzled  look  which  scared  while  it  warned 
me.  How  cruel  it  seemed  of  Sinfi,  who  had  planned  this 
meeting,  not  to  have  told  me  how  much  and  how  little  Win- 
nie knew  of  the  past. 

"You  know  nothing  about  the  Prince  of  the  Mist  except 
what  I  told  you  on  Raxton  sands,"  she  said.  "But  you  have 
been  very  ill ;  you  will  be  well  now." 

"Yes,"  I  said ;  "I  have  found  the  life  I  had  lost,  and  these 
dreams  of  mine  will  soon  pass." 

As  the  conversation  went  on  I  began  to  see  that  she  re- 
membered our  meetings  on  the  sands — remembered  every- 
thing up  to  a  certain  point.  What  was  that  point?  This 
was  the  question  that  kept  me  on  tenter-hooks. 

Every  word  she  uttered,  however,  shed  light  into  my 
mind,  and  served  as  a  warning  that  I  must  feel  my  way  cau- 
tiously. It  was  evident  to  me  that  in  some  unaccountable 
way  Sinfi  at  some  time  after  she  left  me  at  Beddgelert  had 
discovered  that  Winnie  was  not  really  dead,  and  had 
brought  her  back  to  me — brought  her  back  to  me  restored 
in  mind,  but  with  all  memory  of  what  had  passed  during 
her  dementia  erased  from  her  consciousness.  Everything 
depended  now  upon  my  learning  how  much  of  her  past  she 
did  remember.  A  single  ill-judged  word  of  mine — a  single 
false  move — might  ruin  all,  and  bring  back  the  life  of  misery 
which  I  seemed  at  last  to  have  left  behind  me. 


VI. 

"Winnie,"  I  said,  "you  have  not  yet  told  me  how  you  came 
here.  You  have  not  yet  told  me  how  it  is  that  you  meet  me 
on  Snowdon — meet  me  in  this  wonderful  way." 

"Oh,"  said  she  with  a  smile,  "Badoura  has  been  a  mere 


^82  Aylwin 

puppet  in  tlie  play.  She  had  no  idea  she  was  going  to  meet 
her  prince.  Sinfi  was  suddenly  seized  with  a  desire  that  she 
and  I  should  come  back,  and  visit  the  dear  old  places  we 
knew  together.  I  was  nothing  loth,  as  you  may  imagine, 
but  I  could  not  understand  what  had  made  her  set  her 
heart  upon  it.  When  we  reached  Carnarvonshire  I  found 
that  Sinfi's  people  were  all  encamped  near  to  Bettws  y 
Coed,  and  we  went  and  stayed  there.  We  visited  all  the 
places  in  the  neighborhood  that  were  associated  with  her 
childhood  and  mine." 

"You  went  to  Fairy  Glen?"  I  said. 

"Yes;  we  went  there  the  night  before  last  and  saw  it  in 
the  moonlight." 

"I  was  there,  and  I  saw  you." 

"Ah!  then  the  man  sitting  on  the  boulder  at  the  bottom 
was  you !  How  wonderful !  Sinfi  was  there  on  the  step 
round  the  corner ;  she  must  have  seen  you.  I  know  now 
why  she  suddenly  hurried  me  away.  She  had  told  me  that 
she  wanted  to  see  the  Glen  by  moonlight." 

"Then  you  did  not  know  that  you  would  meet  me  here?" 

"My  dear  Henry,  do  you  suppose  that  if  I  had  known,  I 
could  have  been  induced  to  take  part  in  anything  so  thea- 
trical? When  I  saw  you  standing  here  my  amazement  and 
joy  were  so  great  that  I  forgot  the  strange  way  in  which  I 
stood  exhibited." 

I  felt  that  the  longer  she  chatted  about  such  matters  as 
these  the  more  opportunities  I  should  get  of  learning  how 
much  and  how  little  she  knew  of  her  own  story,  so  I  said : 

"But  tell  me  how  Sinfi  contrived  to  trick  you." 

"Well,  this  morning  was  the  time  fixed  for  our  visiting 
Llyn  Coblynau,  as  we  call  Knockers'  Llyn,  which  was  my 
favourite  place  as  a  child.  We  were  to  see  it  when  the 
colours  of  the  morning  were  upon  it.  Then  we  were  to  go 
right  to  the  top  of  Snowdon  and  take  a  mid-day  meal  at  the 
hut  there,  and  in  the  evening  go  down  to  Llanberis  and 
sleep  there.  To-morrow  morning  we  were  to  go  to  dear 
old  Carnarvon  and  see  again  the  beloved  sea.  I  find  now 
that  her  plan  was  to  bring  you  and  me  together  in  this 
sensational  way." 

"Will  she  join  us?"  I  asked. 

"I  know  no  more  than  you  what  will  be  Sinfi's  next 
whim.  At  the  last  moment  yesterday  I  was  surprised  to 
find  that  I  was  not  to  come  with  her  here,  as  she  was  not  to 


Sinfi's    Coup    de    Theatre  383 

sleep  in  the  camp  last  night  because  she  had  promised  to  see 
a  friend  at  Capel  Curig.  And  now,  shall  I  tell  you  how  she 
inveigled  me  into  taking  my  part  in  this  Snowdon  play  she 
was  getting  up?  She  told  me  that  she  had  the  greatest  wish 
to  discover  how  the  'Knockers'  echoes,'  as  they  are  called, 
would  sound  if  in  the  early  morning,  she  were  to  play  her 
crwth  in  one  spot,  and  I  were  to  answer  it  from  another  spot 
with  a  verse  of  a  Welsh  song.  It  seemed  a  pretty  idea,  and 
it  was  agreed  that  when  I  reached  the  llyn  I  was  to  go 
round  it  to  the  opening  at  the  east,  pass  through  the  crevice, 
and  wait  there  till  I  heard  her  crwth." 

"Well,  Winnie,  I  must  say  that  the  way  in  which  our 
Gypsy  friend  manipulated  you,  and  the  way  in  which  she 
manipulated  me,  shows  a  method  that  would  have  done 
credit  to  any  madness." 

"You?     How  did  she  trick  you?" 

I  was  determined  not  to  talk  about  myself  till  I  had  felt 
my  way. 

"Winnie,  dear,"  I  said,  "seeing  you  is  such  a  surprise, 
and  my  illness  has  left  me  so  weak,  that  I  must  wait  before 
talking  about  myself.  I  shall  be  more  able  to  do  this  after 
I  have  learnt  more  of  w^hat  has  befallen  you.  You  say  that 
Sinfi  proposed  to  bring  you  to  Wales ;  but  where  were  you 
when  she  did  so?  And  what  brought  you  into  contact  with 
Sinfi  again  after — after — after  you  and  I  were  parted  in 
Raxton  ?" 

"Ah !  that  is  a  strange  story  indeed,"  said  Winifred.  "It 
bewilders  me  to  recall  it  as  much  as  it  will  bewilder  you 
when  you  come  to  hear  it.  I,  too,  seem  to  have  been  ill, 
and  quite  unconscious  for  months  and  months." 

"Winnie,"  I  said,  "tell  me  this  strange  story  about  your- 
self. Tell  it  in  your  own  way,  and  do  not  let  me  interrupt 
you  by  a  word.  Whenever  you  see  that  I  am  about  to 
speak,  stop  me — put  your  hand  over  my  mouth." 

"But  where  am  I  to  begin?" 

"Begin  from  our  first  meeting  on  the  sands  on  the  night 
of  the  landslip." 

But  while  I  spoke  I  thought  I  observed  her  looking  at 
the  breakfast  provided  by  Sinfi  with  something  like  the 
same  wistful  expression  that  was  on  her  face  on  that  morn- 
ing forgotten  by  her  but  remembered  by  me  so  well,  when 
she  breakfasted  so  heartily  on  the  same  spot. 

"Winnie,"  I  said,  "this  mountain  air  has  given  me  a 


384  Aylwin 

voracious  appetite.  I  wonder  whether  you  could  manage 
to  eat  some  of  these  good  things  provided  by  our  theatrical 
manageress." 

"I  wonder  whether  I  could,"  said  Winnie.  "I'll  try — if 
you'll  ask  me  no  questions,  but  talk  about  Snowdon  and 
watch  the  changes  of  the  glorious  morning.  But  we  must 
call  Sinfi." 

"No,  no.  I  want  to  talk  to  you  alone  first.  By  the  time 
your  story  is  over  I  at  least  shall  be  ready  for  another 
breakfast,  and  then  we  will  call  her." 

This  was  agreed  upon,  and  I  sat  down  to  my  second 
breakfast  with  Winnie  beside  Knockers'  Llyn.  I  sat  with 
my  face  opposite  to  the  llyn,  and  we  had  scarcely  begun 
when  I  noticed  Sinfi's  face  peeping  round  a  corner  of  the 
little  gorge.  Winnie's  back  being  turned  from  the  llyn  she 
did  not  see  Sinfi,  who  gave  me  a  sign  that  her  part  of  that 
performance  was  to  be  looker-on. 

I  have  not  time  to  dwell  upon  what  was  said  and  done 
during  our  breakfast  in  this  romantic  place,  and  under  these 
more  than  romantic  circumstances.  During  the  whole  of 
the  time  the  Knockers  kept  up  their  knockings,  and  it  really 
seemed  as  though  the  good-natured  goblins  were  express- 
ing their  welcome  to  the  child  of  y  Wyddfa. 


XV. 

The    Daughter   of 
Snowdon's    Story 


XV. — THE    DAUGHTER  OF 
SNOWDON'S   STORY 

I. 

After  the  breakfast  was  ended  Winifred  went  over  the  en- 
tire drama  of  that  night  of  the  landslip  as  far  as  she  knew 
it.  There  was  not  an  important  incident  that  she  missed. 
Every  detail  of  her  narrative  was  so  vividly  given  that  I 
lived  it  all  over  again.  She  recalled  our  meeting  on  the 
sands,  and  my  inexplicable  bearing  when  she  told  me  of  the 
seaman's  present  of  precious  stones  to  her  father.  She  dwelt 
upon  my  mysterious  conduct  in  insisting  upon  our  ascend- 
ing the  cliff  by  different  gangways.  She  recalled  her  pick- 
ing up  from  the  sands  a  parchment  scroll  and  spelling  out 
by  the  moonlight  the  words  of  the  curse  it  called  down 
upon  the  head  of  any  one  who  should  violate  the  tomb  from 
which  the  parchment  and  the  jewel  had  been  stolen,  but 
as  she  repeated  the  w^ords  of  the  curse  she  was  evidently 
unconscious  of  the  tremendous  import  of  the  words  in  re- 
gard to  herself  and  her  father.  She  told  me  of  her  desire  to 
conceal  from  me,  for  my  own  sake  merely,  the  evidence  af- 
forded by  the  scroll  that  my  father's  tomb  had  been  vio- 
lated. She  recalled  my  seeing  the  parchment  and  being 
thrown  thereby  into  a  state  of  the  greatest  mental  agony. 
She  recalled  my  taking  her  hand  as  we  n eared  the  new 
tongue  of  land  made  by  the  debris,  and  peering  round  it  as 
though  in  dread  of  some  concealed  foe,  but  evidently  she 
had  no  idea  zvhat  was  behind  there.  She  described  the  way 
in  which  my  "foot  slipped  on  the  sand,"  and  how  I  was 
thrown  back  upon  her  as  she  stood  waiting  to  pass  the 
debris  herself.  She  spoke  of  my  miaccountable  and  ap- 
parently mad  suggestion  that  we  should,  although  the  tide 
was  coming  in,  and  we  were  already  in  danger  of  being  im- 


388  Aylwin 

prisoned  in  the  cove  and  drowned,  sit  down  on  the  boulder 
made  sacred  to  us  both  by  our  childish  betrothal.  She  spoke 
of  her  own  suspicion,  and  then  her  conviction,  that  some 
great  calamity  was  threatening  me  on  account  of  the  viola- 
tion of  the  tomb,  and  that  the  knowledge  of  this  was  govern- 
ing all  these  strange  movements  of  mine.  She  reminded 
me  of  my  telling  her  that  the  shriek  we  both  heard  at  the 
moment  when  the  clifif  fell  was  connected  with  the  crime 
against  my  father  and  that  it  was  the  call  from  the  grave, 
which  according  to  wild  traditions  will  sometimes  come  to 
the  heir  of  an  old  family.  She  recalled  the  very  words  I 
used  when  I  told  her  that  in  answer  to  this  call  I  intended 
to  remain  there  until  the  tide  came  in  and  drowned  me. 
She  dwelt  upon  the  way  in  which  I  urged  her  to  go  and 
leave  me,  her  own  resolution  to  die  with  me,  and  her  cutting 
up  her  shawl  into  a  rope  and  tying  herself  to  me.  She  re- 
called the  sudden  thunderous  noise  of  the  settlement  in  re- 
sponse to  the  tide,  and  my  springing  up  and  running  to 
the  mass  of  debris  and  looking  round  it,  and  then  my  calling 
her  to  join  me ;  and  finally  she  described  her  running  to- 
ward Needle  Point  in  order  to  pass  round  it  before  the  tide 
should  get  any  higher,  her  plunging  into  the  sea  and  my 
pulling  her  round  the  Point. 

It  was  manifest,  from  the  first  word  she  uttered  to  the 
last,  that  she  had  no  idea  who  was  the  "miscreant,"  to  use 
her  oft-repeated  word,  who  committed  the  sacrilege,  and 
nothing  could  express  what  relief  this  gave  my  heart.  I 
felt  as  though  I  had  just  escaped  from  some  peril  too  dire  to 
think  of  with  calmness. 

"You  remember,  Henry,"  said  she,  "how  we  ran  to  the 
cottage  in  our  wet  clothes.  You  remember  how  we  parted 
at  the  cottage  door.  From  that  night  till  now  we  have  never 
met,  and  now  we  meet — here  on  Snowdon — at  the  very  llyn 
I  was  always  so  fond  of." 

"But  tell  me  more,  Winnie — tell  me  what  occurred  to 
you  on  the  next  morning." 

"Well,"  said  she.  "I  was  always  a  sound  sleeper,  but 
my  fatigue  that  night  made  me  sleep  until  late  the  next 
morning.  I  hurried  up  and  got  breakfast  ready  for  father 
and  myself.  I  then  went  and  rapped  at  his  door,  but  I 
got  no  answer.    His  room  was  empty." 

Winifred  paused  here  as  though  she  expected  me  to  say 
something.    A  thousand  things  occurred  to  me  to  ask,  but 


The   Daughter  of  Snowdon's  Story     389 

until  I  knew  more — until  I  knew  how  much  and  how 
little  she  remembered  of  that  dreadful  time,  I  dared  ask  her 
nothing — I  dared  make  no  remark  at  all.  I  said  "Go  on, 
Winnie;  pray  do  not  break  your  story." 

"Well,"  said  she,  "I  found  that  my  father  had  not  re- 
turned during  the  night.  I  did  not  feel  disturbed  at  that, 
his  ways  were  so  uncertain.  I  did  not  even  hurry  over 
my  breakfast,  but  dallied  over  it,  recalling  the  scenes  of 
the  previous  night,  and  wondering  what  some  of  them 
could  mean.  I  then  went  down  the  gangway  at  Needle 
Point  to  walk  on  the  sands.  I  thought  I  might  meet 
father  coming  from  Dullingham.  I  had  to  pass  the  land- 
slip, where  a  great  number  of  Raxton  people  were  gathered. 
They  were  looking  at  the  frightful  relics  of  Raxton  church- 
yard. They  were  too  dreadful  for  me  to  look  at.  I  walked 
right  to  Dullingham  without  meeting  my  father.  At  Dull- 
ingham I  was  told  that  he  had  not  been  there  for  some 
days.  Then,  for  the  first  time,  I  began  to  be  haunted  by 
fears,  but  they  took  no  distinct  shape.  When  I  returned 
to  the  landslip  the  people  were  still  there,  and  still  very 
excited  about  it.  In  the  afternoon  I  went  again  on  the 
sands,  thinking  that  I  might  see  my  father  and  also  that  I 
might  see  you.  I  walked  about  till  dusk  without  seeing 
either  of  you,  and  then  I  went  back  to  the  cottage.  I  had 
now  become  very  anxious  about  my  father,  and  sat  up  all 
night.  The  next  morning  after  breakfast  I  went  again  on 
the  sands.  The  number  of  people  collected  round  the  land- 
slip seemed  greater  than  ever,  and  many  of  them,  I  think, 
came  from  Graylingham,  Rington,  and  Dullingham.  They 
seemed  more  excited  than  they  had  been  on  the  previous 
day,  and  they  did  not  notice  me  as  I  joined  them.  I  heard 
some  one  say  in  a  cracked  and  piping  voice,  'Well,  it's  my 
belief  as  Tom  lays  under  that  there  settlement.  It's  my 
belief  that  he  wur  standing  on  the  edge  of  the  church- 
yard clifT,  and  when  the  cliff  fell  he  fell  with  it.'  Then  the 
kind  and  good-natured  little  tailor  Shales  saw  me,  and  I 
thought  he  must  have  made  some  signal  to  the  others, 
for  they  all  stood  silent.  I  felt  sure  now  that  for  some 
reason  unknown  to  me,  it  was  generally  believed  that  my 
father  had  perished  in  the  landslip.  Mrs.  Shales  took  me 
bv  the  hand,  and  gently  led  me  away  up  the  gangway. 
When  we  reached  the  cottage  I  asked  her  whether  my 
father's  body  had  been  found.    She  told  me  that  it  had  not, 


390  Aylwin 

and  was  not  likely  to  be  found,  for  if  it  had  really  fallen  with 
the  landslip  his  body  lay  under  tons  upon  tons  of  earth. 
I  shall  never  forget  the  misery  of  that  night;  kind  Mrs. 
Shales  w^ould  not  leave  me,  but  slept  in  the  cottage.  I 
had  very  little  doubt  that  the  Raxton  people  were  right 
in  their  dreadful  guesses  about  my  father.  I  had  very  little 
doubt  that  while  walking  along  the  clifif,  either  to  or  from 
the  cottage,  he  had  reached  the  point  at  the  back  of  the 
church  at  the  moment  of  the  landslip,  and  been  carried 
down  with  it,  and  I  now  felt  sure  that  the  shriek  you  and  I 
both  heard  was  his  shriek  of  terror  as  he  fell.  I  bethought 
me  of  the  jewels  that  my  father's  sailor  friend  was  to  give 
him,  and  searched  the  cottage  for  them.  As  I  could  not 
find  them,  I  felt  sure  that  it  was  on  his  return  from  his 
meeting  with  his  sailor  friend,  when  the  jewels  were  upon 
him,  that  he  fell  with  the  landslip." 

Again  Winnie  paused  as  if  awaiting  some  question,  or 
at  least  some  remark  from  me. 

"Did  you  make  no  inquiries  about  me?"  I  said. 

"Oh,  yes,"  said  she ;  "my  grief  at  the  loss  of  my  father 
was  very  much  increased  by  my  not  being  able  to  see  you. 
Mrs.  Shales  told  me  that  you  were  ill — very  ill.  And 
altogether,  you  may  imagine  my  misery.  Day  after  day  I 
got  worse  and  worse  news  of  you.  And  day  after  day  it 
became  more  and  more  certain  that  my  father  had  perished 
in  the  way  people  supposed.  I  used  to  spend  most  of  the 
day  on  the  sand,  gazing  at  the  landslip,  and  searching  for 
my  father's  body.  Every  one  tried  to  persuade  me  to  give 
up  my  search,  as  it  was  hopeless,  for  his -body  was  certain 
to  be  buried  deep  under  the  new  tongue  of  land." 

"But  you  still  continued  your  search,  Winnie?"  I  said, 
remembering  every  word  Dr.  Mivart  had  told  me  in  con- 
nection with  her  being  found  by  the  fishermen. 

"Yes,  I  found  it  impossible  not  to  go  on  with  it.  But 
one  morning  after  there  had  been  a  great  storm,  followed 
by  a  further  settlement  of  the  landslip,  I  went  out  alone  on 
the  cliffs.  I  said  to  myself,  'This  shall  be  my  last  search.' 
By  this  timiC  the  news  of  your  illness  and  the  anxiety  I  felt 
about  you  helped  much  in  blunting  the  anxiety  I  felt 
about  my  father's  loss.  But  on  this  very  morning  I  am 
speaking  of  something  very  extraordinary  happened." 

"Don't  tell  me,  Winnie.  For  God's  sake,  don't  tell  me! 
Tt  will  disturb  you;  it  will  make  vou  ill  again." 


The  Daughter  of  Snowdon's  Story     391 

She  looked  at  me  in  evident  astonishment  at  my  words. 

"Don't  tell  you,  Henry?  Why,  there  is  nothing  to  tell," 
said  she.  "As  I  was  walking  along  the  sands,  looking  at 
the  new  tongue  of  land  made  by  the  landslip,  I  seem  to 
have  lost  consciousness." 

"And  you  don't  know  what  caused  this  ?" 

"Not  in  the  least;  unless  it  was  my  anxiety  and  want 
of  sleep.  This  was  the  beginning  of  the  long  illness  that 
I  spoke  of,  and  I  seemed  to  have  remained  quite  without 
consciousness  until  a  few  weeks  ago.  I  often  try  to  make 
my  mind  bring  back  the  circumstances  under  which  I  lost 
consciousness.  I  throw  my  thoughts,  so  to  speak,  upon  a 
wall  of  darkness,  and  they  come  reeling  back  like  waves 
that  are  dashed  against  a  cliff." 

"Then  don't  do  so  any  more,  Winnie.  I  know  enough 
of  such  matters  to  tell  you  confidently  that  you  never  will 
recall  the  incidents  connected  with  your  collapse,  and  that 
the  endeavour  to  do  so  is  really  injurious  to  you.  What  in- 
terests me  very  much  more  is  to  know  the  circumstances 
under  which  you  came  to  yourself.  I  am  dying  with 
impatience  to  know  all  about  that." 


II. 

"When  I  came  to  myself,"  said  Winifred.  "I  was  in  a 
world  as  new  and  strange  and  wonderful  as  that  in  which 
Christopher  Sly  found  himself  when  he  woke  up  to  his  new 
life  in  Shakspeare's  play." 

She  paused.  She  little  thought  how  my  flesh  kindled 
with  impatience. 

"Yes,  Winnie,"  I  said ;  "you  arc  going  to  tell  me  how, 
and  where,  and  when  you  were  restored  to  life — regained 
your  consciousness,  I  mean — unless  it  will  too  deeply 
agitate  you  to  tell  me." 

"It  will  not  agitate  me  in  the  least,  Henry,  to  tell  you 
all  about  it.  But  it  is  a  long  story,  and  this  seems  a 
strange  place  in  which  to  tell  it,  surrounded  by  these  glori- 
ous peaks  and  covered  by  this  roof  of  sunrise.  But  do 
you  tell  me  all  about  yourself,  all  about  your  iHne?s,  which 
seems  to  have  been  a  dreadful  one." 


392  Aylwin 

My  story,  indeed!  What  was  there  in  my  story  that  I 
could  or  dare  tell  her?  My  story  would  have  to  be  all 
about  herself,  and  the  tragedy  of  the  supposed  curse,  and 
the  terrible  seizures  from  which  she  had  recovered,  and  of 
which  she  must  never  know.  I  set  to  work  to  persuade 
her  to  tell  me  all  she  knew. 

At  last  she  yielded,  and  said,  "Well,  I  awoke  as  from  a 
deep  sleep,  and  found  myself  lying  on  a  couch,  with  a 
man's  face  bending  over  mine.  I  could  fiot  help  exclaim- 
ing, 'Henry !'  " 

"Then  did  he  resemble  me?"  I  asked. 

"Only  in  this — that  in  his  eyes  there  was  the  expression 
which  has  always  appealed  to  me  more  than  any  other 
■expression,  whether  in  human  eyes  or  in  the  eyes  of  ani- 
mals. I  mean  the  pleading,  yearning  expression  of  lone- 
liness that  there  was  in  your  eyes  when  they  were  the  eyes 
of  a  little  lame  boy  who  could  not  get  up  the  gangways 
without  me." 

"Ah,  the  egotism  of  love,"  I  exclaimed.  "You  mean, 
Winnie,  that  expression  which  my  unlucky  eyes  had  lost 
when  we  met  upon  the  sands  after  our  childhood  was 
passed." 

"But  which  love,"  said  she,  "love  of  Winnie,  sorrow  for 
the  loss  of  Winnie,  have  brought  back,  increased  a  thou- 
sandfold, till  it  gives  me  pain  and  yet  a  delicious  pain  to 
look  into  them.  Oh,  Henry,  I  can't  go  on ;  I  really  can't, 
if  you  look " 

She  burst  into  tears. 

When  she  got  calmer  she  proceeded. 

"It  was  only  in  the  expression  of  your  eyes  that  he  re- 
sembled you.  He  was  much  older,  and  wore  spectacles. 
He,  on  his  part,  gave  a  start  when  he  looked  into  my  eyes. 
It  seemed  to  me  that  he  had  been  expecting  to  see  some- 
thing in  them  which  he  did  not  find  there,  and  was  a  little 
disappointed.  I  then  heard  voices  in  the  room,  which  was 
evidently,  from  the  sound  of  the  voices,  a  large  room, 
and  I  looked  round.  I  saw  that  there  was  another  couch 
close  to  mine,  but  nearly  hidden  from  view  by  a  large 
screen  between  the  two  couches.  Evidently  a  woman  was 
lymg  on  the  other  couch,  for  I  could  see  her  feet ;  she  was 
a  tall  woman,  for  her  feet  reached  out  much  bevond  my 
own." 

"Good  heavens,  Winnie,"  I  exclaimed,  "what  on  earth 


The  Daughter  of  Snowdon's  Story     393 

IS  coming?  But  I  promised  not  to  interrupt  you.  Pray 
go  on,  I  am  all  impatience." 

"Well,  at  the  sound  of  the  voices  the  gentleman  started, 
and  seemed  much  alarmed — alarmed  on  my  account,  I 
thought. 

"I  then  heard  a  voice  say,  'A  most  successful  experi- 
ment. Look  at  the  face  of  this  other  patient,  and  see  the 
expression  on  it.' 

"The  gentleman  bent  over  me,  and  hurriedly  raised  me 
from  the  couch,  and  then  fairly  carried  me  out  of  the 
room.  But  you  seem  very  excited,  Henry,  you  have  turned 
quite  pale." 

It  would  have  been  wonderful  if  I  had  not  turned  pale. 
So  deeply  burnt  into  my  brain  had  been  the  picture  I  had 
imagined  of  Winnie  dead  and  in  a  pauper's  grave  that 
even  now,  with  Winnie  in  my  arms,  it  all  came  to  me,  and  I 
seemed  to  see  her  lying  in  a  pauper's  shroud,  and  being 
restored  to  life,  and  I  said  to  her,  "Did  you  observe — did 
you  observe  your  dress,  Winnie?" 

She  answered  my  question  by  a  little  laugh. 

"Did  I  observe  my  dress  at  such  a  moment?  Well,  I 
knew  you  could  be  satirical  on  my  sex  when  you  are  in  the 
mood,  but,  Henry,  there  are  moments,  I  assure  you,  when 
the  first  thing  a  woman  observes  is  not  her  dress,  and 
this  was  one.  Afterwards  I  did  observe  it,  and  I  can  tell  you 
what  it  was.  It  was  a  walking  dress.  Perhaps,"  said  she 
with  a  smile,  "perhaps  you  would  like  to  know  the  mater- 
ial?    But  really  I  have  forgotten  that." 

"Pardon  my  idle  question,  Winnie — pray  go  on,  I  will 
interrupt  you  no  more." 

"Oh,  you  will  interrupt  me  no  more!  We  shall  see. 
The  gentleman  then  led  me  through  a  passage  of  some 
length." 

"Do  describe  it!" 

"I  felt  quite  sure  you  would  interrupt  me  no  more. 
Well !  The  dim  light  in  the  windows  made  me  guess  I 
was  in  an  old  house,  and  from  the  sweet  smell  of  hay  and 
wild  flowers  I  thought  we  were  near  the  Wilderness,  at 
Raxton.  I  could  only  imagine  that  I  had  fallen  insensible 
on  the  sands  and  been  taken  to  Raxton  Hall." 

"Ah!  that's  where  you  ought  to  have  been  taken,"  I 
could  not  help  exclaiming. 

"Surely  not,"  said  Winnie. 


394  Aylwin 

"Why?" 

"Your  mother!     But  why  have  you  turned  so  angry?" 

In  spite  of  all  that  I  had  lately  witnessed  of  my  mother's 
sufferings  from  remorse,  in  spite  of  all  the  deep  and  genuine 
pity  that  those  sufferings  had  drawn  from  me,  Winnie's 
words  struck  deeper  than  any  pity  for  any  creature  but 
herself,  and  for  a  moment  my  soul  rose  against  my  mother 
again. 

"Go  on,  Winnie,  pray  go  on,"  I  said. 

"You  will  make  me  talk  about  myself,"  said  Winifred, 
"when  I  so  much  want  to  hear  all  about  you.  This  is 
what  I  call  the  self-indulgence  of  love.  Well,  then,  the 
gentleman  and  I  mounted  some  steps  and  then  we  entered 
a  tapestried  room.  The  windows — they  were  quaint  and 
old-fashioned  casements — were  open,  and  the  sunlight  was 
pouring  through  them.  I  then  saw  at  once  that  I  was  not 
anywhere  near  Raxton.  Besides,  there  was  no  sea-smell 
mixed  with  the  perfumes  of  the  flowers  and  the  songs  of 
the  birds.  That  I  was  not  near  Raxton,  very  much  amazed 
me,  you  may  be  sure.  And  then  the  room  was  so  new  to 
me  and  so  strange.  I  had  never  been  in  an  artist's  studio, 
but  Sinfi  had  talked  to  me  of  such  places,  and  there  were 
many  signs  that  I  was  in  a  studio  now." 

"A  studio !  And  not  in  London !  Describe  it,  Winnie," 
I  said. 

Although  she  had  told  me  that  the  house  was  in  the 
country,  my  mind  flew  at  once  to  Wilderspin's  studio. 
"You  say  that  the  gentleman  was  not  young,  but  that  he 
had  an  expression  of  sorrow  in  his  eyes.  Had  he  long 
iron-grey  hair,  and  was  he  dressed — dressed,  like  a — like  a 
shiny  Quaker?"  So  full  was  my  mind  of  Mrs.  Gudgeon's 
story  that  I  was  positively  using  her  language. 

"Like  a  what  ?"  exclaimed  Winnie.  "Really,  Henry,  you 
have  become  very  eccentric  since  our  parting.  The  gen- 
tleman had  not  iron-grey  hair,  and  he  was  not  dressed 
in  the  least  like  a  Quaker,  unless  a  loose,  brown  lounge 
coat  tossed  on  anyhow  over  a  waistcoat  and  trousers  of 
the  same  colour  is  the  costume  of  a  shiny  Quaker.  But  it 
was  the  room  you  asked  me  to  describe.  There  were  pic- 
tures on  the  walls,  and  there  were  two  easels,  and  on  one 
of  them  I  saw  a  picture.  The  gentleman  led  me  to  a 
strange  and  very  beautiful  piece  of  furniture.  If  I  at- 
tempted to  describe  it  I  should  call  it  a  divan,  under  a 


The   Daughter  of  Snowdon's  Story     395 

gorg'eous  kind  of  awning  ornamented  with  Chinese  figures 
in  ivory  and  precious  stones.  Now,  isn't  it  exactly  Hkc 
an  Arabian  Nights  story,  Henry?" 

"Yes,  yes,  Winnie ;  but  pray  go  on.  What  did  the  gentle- 
man do?" 

"He  drew  a  chair  towards  me,  and  without  speaking 
looked  into  my  face  again.  The  expression  in  his  eyes 
drew  me  towards  him,  as  it  had  at  first  done  when  I  awoke 
from  my  trance ;  it  drew  me  towards  him  partly  because  it 
said,  'I  am  lonely  and  in  sorrow,'  and  partly  from  another 
cause  which  I  could  not  understand  and  could  never  define, 
howsoever  I  might  try.  'Where  am  I?'  I  said;  'I  remem- 
ber nothing  since  I  fell  on  the  sands.  Where  is  Henry? 
Is  he  better  or  worse?  Can  you  tell  me?'  The  gentleman 
said,  'The  friend  you  inquire  about  is  a  long  way  from  here, 
and  you  are  a  long  way  from  Raxton.'  I  asked  him  why  I 
was  a  long  way  from  Raxton,  and  said,  'Who  brought  me 
here?  Do,  please,  tell  me  what  it  means.  I  am  amongst 
friends — of  that  I  am  sure ;  there  is  something  in  your 
voice  which  assures  me  of  that ;  but  do  tell  me  what  this 
mystery  means.'  'You  are  indeed  among  friends,'  he  said. 
Then  looking  at  me  with  an  expression  of  great  kindness, 
he  continued,  'It  w'ould  be  difficult  to  imagine  where  you 
could  go  without  finding  friends,  Miss  Wynne.'  " 

"Then  he  knew  who  you  w'ere,  Winnie?"  I  said. 

"Yes,  he  knew  who  I  was,"  said  she,  looking  meditatively 
across  the  hills  as  though  my  query  had  raised  in  her  own 
mind  some  question  which  had  newly  presented  itself. 
"The  gentleman  told  me  that  I  had  been  very  ill  and  was 
now  recovered,  but  not  so  entirely  recovered  at  present 
that  I  could  with  safety  be  burthened  and  perplexed  with 
the  long  story  of  my  illness  and  what  had  brought  me  there. 
And  when  he  concluded  by  saying,  'You  are  here  for  your 
good,'  I  exclaimed,  'Ah,  yes ;  no  need  for  me  to  be  told  that.' 
for  his  voice  convinced  me  that  it  was  so.  'But  surely  you 
can  tell  me  something.  Where  is  Henry?  Is  he  still  ill?' 
I  said.  He  told  me  that  he  believed  you  to  be  perfectly 
well,  and  that  you  had  lately  been  living  in  Wales,  but  had 
now  gone  to  Japan.  'Henry  lately  in  Wales !  now  gone  to 
Japan !'  I  exclaimed,  'and  he  was  not  with  me  after  the 
illness  that  you  say  I  have  just  recovered  from?" 

"Winnie,"  I  said,  "it  was  no  wonder  you  asked  those 
questions,  but  you  will  soon  know  all." 


39^  Aylwin 

Whilst  Winnie  had  been  talking  my  mind  had  been  partly 
occupied  with  words  that  fell  from  her  about  the  voice  of 
her  mysterious  rescuer.    They  seemed  to  recall  something. 
"You  were  saying,  Winnie,  that  the  gentleman  had  a  pe- 
culiarly musical  voice,"  I  said. 

"So  musical,"  she  replied,  "that  it  seemed  to  delight  and 
charm,  not  my  mind  only,  but  every  nerve  in  my  body." 
"Could  you  describe  it?" 

"Describe  a  voice,"  she  said,  laughing.    "Who  could  de- 
scribe a  voice  ?" 

"You,  Winnie ;  only  you.     Do  describe  it." 
"I  wonder,"  she.  said,  "whether  you  remember  our  first 
walk  along  the  Raxton  road,  when  I  made  invidious  com- 
parison between  the  voices  of  birds  and  the  voices  of  men 
and  women?" 

"Indeed  I  do,"  I  said.  "I  remember  how  you  suggested 
that  among  the  birds  the  rooks  only  could  listen  without 
offence  to  the  cackle  of  a  crowd  of  people." 

"Well,  Henry,  I  can  only  give  you  an  idea  of  the  gentle- 
man's voice  by  saying  that  the  most  fastidious  blackbirds 
and  thrushes  that  ever  lived  would  have  liked  it.  Indeed 
they  did  seem  to  like  it,  as  I  afterwards  thought,  when  I 
took  walks  with  him.  It  was  music  in  every  variety  of  tone ; 
and,  besides,  it  seemed  to  me  that  this  music  was  enriched 
by  a  tone  which  I  had  learned  from  your  own  dear  voice 
as  a  child,  the  tone  which  sorrow  can  give  and  nothing 
else.  The  listener,  while  he  was  speaking,  felt  so  drawn  to- 
wards him  as  to  love  the  man  who  spoke.  When  his  voice 
ceased,  some  part  of  his  attraction  ceased.  But  the  mo- 
ment the  voice  was  again  heard  the  magic  of  the  man  re- 
turned as  strong  as  ever." 


III. 

For  some  time  during  Winnie's  narrative  glimmerings  of 
the  gentleman's  identity  had  been  coming  to  me,  and  what 
she  said  of  the  voice  seemed  to  be  turning  these  glimmer- 
ings into  shafts  of  light.  I  was  now  in  a  state  of  the  greatest 
impatience  to  verify  my  surmise.  But  this  only  gave  a 
sharper  edge  to  my  intense  curiosity  as  to  how  she  had  been 
rescued  by  him. 


The  Daughter  of  Snowdon's  Story      397 

"Winnie,"  I  said,  "you  have  said  nothing  about  his  ap- 
pearance.    Could  you  describe  his  face?" 

"Describe  his  face?"  said  Winnie.  "If  I  were  a  painter 
I  could  paint  it  from  memory.  But  who  can  paint  a  face  in 
words?" 

Then  she  launched  into  a  description  of  the  gentleman's 
appearance,  and  gave  me  a  specimen  of  that  "objective" 
power  which  used  to  amaze  me  as  a  child,  but  which  I 
afterwards  found  was  a  specialty  of  the  girls  of  Wales. 

"I  should  like  a  description  of  him  feature  by  feature,"  I 
said. 

She  laughed  and  said,  "I  suppose  I  must  begin  with  his 
forehead  then.  It  was  almost  of  the  tone  of  white  marble, 
and  contrasted,  but  not  too  violently,  with  the  thin  crop  of 
dark  hair  slightly  curling  round  the  temples,  which  were 
partly  bald.  The  forehead  in  its  form  was  so  perfect  that 
it  seemed  to  shed  its  own  beauty  over  all  the  other  feat- 
ures ;  it  prevented  me  from  noticing,  as  I  afterwards  did, 
that  these  other  features,  the  features  below  the  eyes,  were 
not  in  themiselves  beautiful.  The  eyes,  which  looked  at  me 
through  spectacles,  were  of  a  colour  between  hazel  and 
blue-grey,  but  there  were  lights  shining  within  them  which 
were  neither  grey,  nor  hazel,  nor  blue — wonderful  lights. 
And  it  was  to  these  indescribable  lights,  moving  and  alive 
in  the  deeps  of  the  pupils,  that  his  face  owed  its  extraordi- 
nary attractiveness.  Have  I  sufficiently  described  him?  or 
am  I  to  go  on  taking  his  face  to  pieces  for  you?" 

"Go  on,  Winnie — pray  go  on." 

"Well,  then,  between  the  eyes  across  the  top  of  the  nose, 
where  the  bridge  of  the  spectacles  rested,  there  was  a 
strongly  marked  indented  line  which  had  the  appearance 
of  having  been  made  by  long-continued  pressure  of  the 
spectacle  frame.    Am  I  still  to  go  on?" 

"Yes,  yes." 

"The  beauty  of  the  face,  as  I  said  before,  was  entirely 
confined  to  the  upper  portion.  It  did  not  extend  lower 
than  the  cheek  bones,  which  were  well  shaped." 

"The  mouth,  Winnie?  Describe  that,  and  then  I  need 
not  ask  you  his  name,  though  perhaps  you  don't  know  it 
yourself." 

"A  dark  brown  moustache  covered  the  mouth.  I  have 
always  thought  that  a  mouth  is  unattractive  if  the  lips  are 
."O  close  to  the  teeth  that  they  seem  to  stick  to  them ;  and 


39^  Aylwin 

yet  what  a  kind  woman  Mrs.  Shales  is,  and  her  mouth  is  of 
this  kind.  But  on  the  other  hand  where  the  space  between 
the  teeth  and  the  Hps  is  too  great  no  mouth  can  be  called 
beautiful,  I  think.  Now,  though  the  mouth  of  the  gentle- 
man was  not  ill-cut,  the  lips  were  too  far  from  the  teeth,  I 
thought ;  they  were  too  loose,  a  little  baggy,  in  short.  And 
when  he  laughed " 

"What  about  that,  Winnie?  I  specially  want  to  know 
about  his  laugh." 

"Then  I  will  tell  you.  When  he  laughed  his  teeth  were 
a  little  too  much  seen;  and  this  gave  the  mouth  a  some- 
what satirical  expression." 

"Winnie,"  I  said,  "there  is  no  need  now  for  you  to  tell  me 
the  name  of  the  gentleman.  In  a  few  sentences  you  have 
described  him  better  than  I  could  have  done  in  a  hundred." 

"And  certainly  there  is  no  reason  why  I  should  not  tell 
you  his  name,"  she  said,  laughing,  "for  if  there  is  a  word 
that  is  musical  in  my  ears,  it  is  the  name  of  him  whose  voice 
is  music — D'Arcy.  When  he  told  me  that  I  should  know 
everything  in  time,  and  that  there  was  nothing  for  me  to 
know  except  that  which  would  give  me  comfort,  and  said, 
'You  confide  in  me !'  I  could  only  answer,  'Who  would  not 
confide  in  you?  I  will  wait  patiently  until  you  tell  me  what 
you  have  to  tell.'  'Then,'  said  he,  'the  best  thing  you  can 
do  is  to  lie  down  for  an  hour  or  two  on  that  divan  and  rest 
yourself,  and  go  to  sleep  if  you  can,  while  I  go  and  attend 
to  certain  affairs  that  need  me.'  He  then  left  the  room. 
I  was  glad  to  be  alone,  for  I  was  terribly  tired.  I  felt  as 
though  I  had  been  taking  violent  bodily  exercise,  but  with- 
out feeling  the  staying  power  that  Snowdon  air  can  give. 
I  lay  down  on  the  divan,  and  must  have  fallen  asleep  imme- 
diately. When  I  woke  I  found  the  same  kind  face  near  me, 
and  the  same  kind  eyes  watching  me.  Mr.  D'Arcy  told  me 
that  I  had  been  sleeping  for  tw^o  hours,  and  that  it  had,  he 
hoped,  much  refreshed  me.  He  told  me  also  that  he  took 
a  constitutional  walk  every  day,  and  asked  me  if  I  would 
accompany  him.  I  said,  'Yes,  I  should  like  to  do  so.'  At 
this  moment  there  passed  the  window  some  railway  men 
leaving  some  luggage.  On  seeing  them  Mr.  D'Arcy  said, 
'I  see  that  I  must  leave  you  for  a  minute  or  two  to  look 
after  a  package  of  canvases  that  has  just  come  from  my  as- 
sistant in  London,'  and  he  left  me.  When  I  was  left  alone 
I  had  an  opportunity  of  observing  the  room.     The  walls 


The   Daughter  of  Snowdon's  Story      399 

were  covered  with  old  faded  tapestry,  so  faded  indeed  that 
its  general  effect  was  that  of  a  dull  grey  texture.  On  look- 
ing at  it  closely  I  found  that  it  told  the  story  of  Samson. 
Every  piece  of  furniture  seemed  to  me  to  be  a  rare 
curiosity." 

"Now,  Winnie,"  I  said,  "I  am  not  going  to  interrupt  you 
any  more.  I  want  to  hear  your  story  as  an  imbroken  nar- 
rative." 


IV. 

■'Well,"  said  Winnie,  "after  a  while  Mr.  D'Arcy  returned 
and  told  me  that  he  was  now  ready  to  take  me  for  a  stroll 
across  the  meadows,  saying,  'The  doctor  told  me  that,  at 
first,  your  walks  must  be  short ;  so  while  you  go  to  your 
room  I  will  get  Mrs.  Titwing  in  for  my  usual  consultation 
about  our  frugal  meal.' 

"'My  room,'  I  said,  'my  room,  and  Mrs.  Titwing; 
who's ' 

"'Ha!  I  quite  forgot  myself,'  he  said,  with  an  air  of 
vexation,  which  he  tried,  I  thought,  to  conceal.  'I  will  ring 
for  Mrs.  Titwing — the  housekeeper — and  she  will  take  you 
to  your  room.' 

"He  walked  towards  the  bell,  but  before  reaching  it  he 
stopped  as  if  arrested  by  a  sudden  thought.  Then  he  said, 
'I  will  go  to  the  housekeeper's  room  and  speak  to  Mrs. 
Titwing  there.  I  shall  be  back  in  a  minute.'  And  he  passed 
from  the  room  through  the  door  by  which  he  and  I  had  first 
entered. 

"Scarcely  had  the  door  closed  behind  him  before  a 
woman  entered  by  another  door  opposite  to  it.  She  was 
about  the  common  height,  slender,  and  of  an  extremely 
youthful  figure  for  a  woman  of  middle  age.  Her  bright 
complexioned  face,  lit  by  two  watery  blue  eyes,  was  pleas- 
ant to  look  upon.  It  was  none  the  less  pleasant  because 
it  showed  clearly  that  she  was  as  guileless  as  a  child. 

"I  knew  at  once  that  she  was  the  person — the  house- 
keeper— that  Mr.  D'Arcy  had  gone  to  seek  at  the  other  side 
of  the  house.  Evidenly  she  had  come  upon  me  unexpect- 
edly, for  she  gave  a  violent  start,  then  she  murmured  to 
herself : 


400  Aylwin 

"  'So  it's  all  over,  and  all  went  off  well,'  she  said.  Then 
she  walked  quietly  towards  me  and  threw  her  arms  round 
me  and  kissed  me,  saying,  'Dear  child,  I  am  so  glad.' 

"The  tone  of  voice  in  which  she  spoke  to  me  was  exactly 
that  of  a  nurse  speaking  to  a  little  child. 

"I  was  so  taken  by  surprise  that  I  pulled  myself  from 
her  embrace  with  some  force.  The  poor  woman  looked  at 
me  in  a  hurt  way  and  then  said : 

"  T  beg  your  pardon,  miss.  I  didn't  notice  at  first  how 
— how  changed  you  are.  The  look  in  your  eyes  makes  me 
feel  that  you  are  not  the  same  person,  and  that  I  have  done 
quite  wrong.' 

"While  she  was  speaking  Mr.  D'Arcy  had  re-entered  the 
room  by  the  door  by  which  he  went  out.  He  had  evidently 
heard  the  housekeeper's  words. 

"  'Miss  Wynne,'  he  said,  'this  is  Mrs.  Titwing,  my  ex- 
cellent housekeeper.  She  has  been  attending  you  during 
your  illness ;  but  your  weakness  was  so  great  that  you  were 
unconscious  of  all  her  kindness.' 

"I  went  up  to  her  and  kissed  her  rosy  cheek,  at  which 
she  began  to  cry  a  little.  I  afterwards  found  that  she  was 
in  the  habit  of  crying  a  little  on  most  occasions. 

"  'Will  you,  then,  kindly  show  me  my  room  ?'  I  said  to 
her.  But  as  she  turned  round  to  lead  the  way  to  the  room, 
Mr.  D'Arcy  said  to  her. 

"  'Before  you  show  Miss  Wynne  the  way,  I  should  like 
one  word  with  you,  IMrs.  Titwing,  in  your  room,  about  the 
arrangements  for  the  day.' 

"The  two  passed  out  of  the  room  and  again  I  was  left  to 
myself  and  my  own  thoughts. 


V. 

"Evidently  there  was  some  mystery  about  me,"  said  Wini- 
fred, continuing  her  story.  "But  the  more  I  tried  to  think 
it  out  the  more  puzzling  it  seemed.  How  had  I  been  con- 
veyed to  this  strange,  new  place?  Who  was  the  wizard 
whose  eyes  and  whose  voice  began  to  enslave  me?  and 
what  time  had  passed  since  he  caught  me  up  on  Raxton 
sand?    It  seemed  exactly  like  one  of  those  Arabian  Nights 


The  Daughter  of  Snowdon's  Story     401 

stories  which  you  and  I  used  to  read  together  when  we 
were  children.  The  waking  up  on  the  couch,  the  sight  of 
the  end  of  the  other  couch  behind  the  screen,  and  the  tall 
woman's  feet  upon  it,  the  voices  from  unseen  persons  in  the 
room,  and  above  all  the  strange  magic  of  him  who  seemed 
to  be  the  directing  genie  of  the  story — all  would  have 
seemed  to  me  unreal  had  it  not  been  for  the  prosaic  figure 
of  Mrs.  Titwing.  About  her  there  could  not  possibly  be 
any  mystery;  she  was  what  Miss  Dalrymple  would  have 
called  'the  very  embodiment  of  British  commonplace,'  and 
when,  after  a  minute  or  two,  she  returned  with  Mr.  D'Arcy, 
I  went  and  kissed  her  again  from  sheer  delight  of  feeling 
the  touch  of  her  real,  solid,  commonplace  cheek,  and  to 
breathe  the  commonplace  smell  of  scented  soap.  Her  bear- 
ing, however,  towards  me  had  become  entirely  changed 
since  she  had  gone  out  of  the  room.  She  did  not  return  the 
kiss,  but  said,  'Shall  I  show  you  the  way,  miss?'  and  led  the 
way  out. 

"She  took  me  through  the  same  dark  passage  by  which 
I  had  entered,  and  then  I  found  myself  in  a  large  bedroom 
with  low  panelled  walls,  in  the  middle  of  which  was  a  vast, 
antique  bedstead  made  of  black  carved  oak,  and  every  bit 
of  furniture  in  the  room  seemed  as  old  as  the  bedstead. 
Over  the  mantlepiece  was  an  old  picture  in  a  carved  oak 
frame,  a  Madonna  and  Child,  the  beauty  of  which  fascina- 
ted me.  I  remember  that  on  the  bottom  of  the  frame  was 
written  in  printed  letters  the  name  'Chiaro  dell  'Erma.'  1 
was  surprised  to  find  in  the  room  another  walking  dress 
laid  out  ready  for  me  to  put  on,  not  new,  but  slightly  worn. 
I  lifted  it  up  and  looked  at  it.  I  saw  at  a  glance  that  it 
would  most  likely  fit  me  like  a  glove. 

"  'Whose  dress  is  this?'  I  said. 

"  'It's  yours,  miss.' 

"  'Mine?     But  how  came  it  mine?' 

"  'Oh,  please  don't  ask  me  any  questions,  miss,'  she  said. 
'Please  ask  Mr.  D'Arcy,  miss ;  he  knows  all  about  it.  I  am 
only  the  housekeeper,  miss.' 

"  'Mr.  D'Arcy  knows  all  about  my  dress  1'  I  said.  'Why, 
what  on  earth  has  Mr.  D'Arcy  to  do  with  my  dress?' 

"  'Please  don't  ask  me  any  more  questions,  miss,'  she 
said.  'Pray  don't.  Mr.  D'Arcy  is  a  very  kind  man;  I  am 
sure  nobody  has  ever  heard  me  say  but  what  he  is  a  very 
kind  man ;  but  if  you  do  what  he  says  you  are  not  to  do. 


402  Aylwin 

if  you  talk  about  what  he  says  you  are  not  to  talk  about,  he 
is  frightful,  he  is  awful.  He  calls  you  a  chattering  old — I 
don't  know  what  he  won't  call  you.  And,  of  course,  I 
know  you  are  a  lady,  miss.  Of"  course  you  look  a  lady,  miss, 
when  you  are  dressed  like  one.  But  then,  you  see,  when  I 
first  saw  you,  you  were  not  dressed  as  you  are  now,  and  at 
first  sight,  of  course,  we  go  by  the  dress  a  good  deal,  you 
know.  But  Mr.  D'Arcy  needn't  be  afraid  I  shall  not  treat 
you  like  a  lady,  miss.  I'm  only  a  housekeeper  now,  though, 
of  course,  I  was  once  very  different — very  different  indeed. 
But,  of  course,  anybody  has  only  to  look  at  you  to  see  you 
are  a  lady,  and  besides  Mr.  D'Arcy  says  you  are  a  lady,  and 
that  is  quite  enough.' 

"At  this  moment  there  came  through  the  door — it  was 
ajar — Mr.  D'Arcy's  voice  from  the  distance,  so  loud  and 
clear  that  every  word  could  be  heard. 

"  'Mrs.  Titwing,  why  do  you  stay  chattering  there,  pre- 
venting Miss  Wynne  from  getting  ready?  You  know  we 
are  going  out  for  a  walk  together.' 

"  'Oh  Lord,  miss!'  said  the  poor  woman  in  a  frightened 
tone,  'I  must  go.  Tell  him  I  didn't  chatter — tell  him  you 
asked  me  questions  and  I  was  obliged  to  answer  them.' 

"The  mysteries  around  me  were  thickening  every  mo- 
ment. What  did  this  prattling  woman  mean  about  the  dress 
in  which  she  had  at  first  seen  me?  Was  the  dress  in  which 
she  had  first  seen  me  so  squalid  that  it  had  affected  her 
simple  imagination?  What  had  become  of  me  after  I  had 
sunk  down  on  Raxton  sands,  and  why  was  I  left  neglected 
by  every  one?  I  knew  you  were  ill  after  the  landslip,  but 
Mr.  D'Arcy  had  just  told  me  that  you  had  since  been  well 
enough  to  go  to  Whales,  and  afterwards  to  Japan. 

"I  put  on  the  dress  and  soon  followed  her.  When  I 
reached  the  tapestried  room  there  was  Mr.  D'Arcy  talking 
to  her  in  a  voice  so  gentle,  tender  and  caressing,  that  it 
seemed  impossible  the  rough  voice  I  had  heard  bellowing 
through  the  passage  could  have  come  from  the  same  mouth, 
and  Mrs.  Titwing  was  looking  into  his  face  with  the  de- 
lighted smile  of  a  child  who  was  being  forgiven  by  its  father 
for  some  offence.  As  I  stood  and  looked  at  them  I  said  to 
myself,  'Truly  I  am  in  a  land  of  wonders.' 


The  Daughter  of  Snowdon's  Story     403 


VI. 

"Mr.  D'Arcy  and  I,"  said  Winifred,  "went  out  of  the  house 
at  the  back,  walked  across  a  roughly  paved  stable-yard,  and 
passed  through  a  gate  and  entered  a  meadow.  Then  w-e 
walked  along  a  stream,  about  as  wide  as  one  of  our  Welsh 
brooks,  but  I  found  it  to  be  a  backwater  connected  with  a 
river.  For  some  time  we  neither  of  us  spoke  a  word.  He 
seemed  lost  in  thought,  and  my  mind  was  busy  with  what  I 
intended  to  say  to  him,  for  I  was  fully  determined  to  get 
some  light  thrown  upon  the  mystery. 

"When  we  reached  the  river  bank  we  turned  towards  the 
left,  and  walked  until  we  reached  a  weir,  and  there  we  sat 
down  upon  a  fallen  willow  tree,  the  inside  of  which  was  all 
touchwood.    Then  he  said  : 

"  'You  are  silent.  Miss  Wynne.' 

''  'And  you  are  silent,'  I  said. 

"  'My  silence  is  easily  explained,'  he  said.  T  was  waiting 
to  hear  some  remark  fall  from  you  as  to  these  meadows  and 
the  river,  which  you  have  seen  so  often.' 

"  'Which  I  see  now  for  the  first  time,  you  mean.' 

"  'Miss  Wynne,'  he  said,  looking  earnestly  in  my  face, 
'you  and  I  have  taken  this  walk  together  nearly  every  day 
for  months.' 

"  'That,'  I  said,  'is — is  quite  impossible.' 

"  'It  is  true,'  he  said.    And  then  again  we  sat  silent. 

"Then  I  said  to  him  with  great  firmness,  'Mr.  D'Arcy, 
I'm  only  a  peasant  girl,  but  I'm  Welsh ;  I  have  faith  in  you, 
faith  in  your  goodness  and  faith  in  your  kindness  to  me ;  but 
I  must  insist  upon  knowing  how  I  came  here,  and  how  you 
and  I  were  brought  together.' 

"He  smiled  and  said,  'I  was  right  in  thinking  that  your 
face  expresses  a  good  deal  of  what  we  call  character.  I 
should  have  preferred  waiting  for  a  day  or  two  before  re- 
lating all  I  have  to  tell  in  answer  to  what  you  ask,  but  as 
you  insist  upon  having  it  now,  it  would  be  ill-bred  for  me  to 
insist  that  you  must  wait.  But  before  I  begin,  would  it  not 
be  better  if  you  were  to  tell  me  something  of  what  occurred 
to  yourself  when  you  were  taken  ill  at  Raxton?' 

"  'Then  will  your  story  begin  where  mine  breaks  of??'  I 
said. 


404  Aylwin 

"  'We  shall  see  that,'  he  said,  'as  soon  as  you  have  ended 
yours.' 

"  'Do  you  know  Raxton?'  I  said. 

"At  first  he  seemed  to  hesitate  about  his  reply,  and  then 
said : 

''^  'No,  I  do  not.' 

"I  then  told  him  in  as  few  words  as  I  could  our  adven- 
tures on  the  sands  on  the  night  of  the  landslip,  and  my 
search  for  my  father's  body  afterwards,  until  I  suddenly 
sank  down  in  a  fit.  When  1  had  finished  Mr.  D'Arcy  was 
silent,  and  was  evidently  lost  in  thought.    At  last  he  said : 

"  'My  story,  I  perceive,  cannot  begin  where  yours  breaks 
oiT.  I  first  became  acquainted  with  you  in  the  studio  of  a 
famous  painter  named  Wilderspin,  one  of  the  noblest- 
minded  and  most  admirable  men  now  breathing,  but  a 
great  eccentric' 

"  'Why,  Mr.  D'Arcy,  I  never  was  in  a  studio  in  my  life 
until  to-day,'  I  said. 

"  'You  mean.  Miss  Wynne,  that  you  were  not  consciously 
there,'  said  he.  'But  in  that  studio  you  certainly  were,  and 
the  artist,  who  reverenced  you  as  a  being  from  another 
world,  was  painting  your  face  in  a  beautiful  picture.  While 
he  was  doing  this  you  were  taken  seriously  ill,  and  your  life 
was  despaired  of.  It  w^as  then  that  I  brought  you  into  the 
country,  and  here  you  have  been  living  and  benefiting  by 
the  kind  services  of  Mrs.  Titwing  for  a  long  time.' 

"  'And  you  know  nothing  of  my  history  previously  to  see- 
ing me  in  the  London  studio?'  I  asked. 

"  'All  that  I  could  ever  learn  about  that,'  said  he,  in  what 
seemed  to  me  a  rather  evasive  tone,  'I  had  to  gather  from 
the  incoherent  and  rambling  talk  of  Wilderspin,  a  religious 
enthusiast  whose  genius  is  very  nearly  akin  to  mania.  He 
was  so  struck  by  you  that  he  actually  believed  you  to  be  not 
a  corporeal  woman  at  all ;  he  believed  you  had  been  sent 
from  the  spirit  world  by  his  dead  mother  to  enable  him  to 
paint  a  great  picture.' 

"  'Oh,  T  must  see  him,  and  make  him  tell  me  all,'  I  said. 

"  'Yes,'  said  he,  'but  not  yet.' 

"What  Mr.  D'Arcy  told  me,"  said  Winnie,  "affected  me 
so  deeplv  that  I  remained  silent  for  a  long  time.  Then  came 
a  thought  which  made  me  say: 

"  'You.  too,  are  a  painter,  Mr.  D'Arcy?' 


The  Daughter  of  Snowdon's  Story     405 

" 'Yes/ he  said. 

"  'During  the  months  that  I  have  been  living  here  have 
you  used  me  as  your  model?' 

"  'No ;  but  that  was  not  because  I  did  not  wish  to  do  so.' 

"Then  he  suddenly  looked  in  my  face  and  said, 

"  'Is  your  family  entirely  Welsh,  Miss  Wynne?' 

"  'Entirely,'  I  said.  'But  why  did  you  not  use  me  as 
your  model.  Mr.  D'Arcy?' 

"  'Poor  Wilderspin  believed  you  to  be  a  spiritual  body,' 
he  said  ;  'I  did  not.  I  knew  that  you  were  a  young  lady  in  an 
unconscious  condition.  To  have  painted  you  in  such  a  con- 
dition and  without  the  possibility  of  getting  your  consent 
would  have  been  sacrilege,  even  if  I  had  painted  you  as  a 
Madonna.' 

"I  could  not  speak,  his  words  and  tone  were  so  tender. 
He  broke  the  silence  by  saying : 

"  'Miss  Wynne,  there  is  one  thing  in  connection  with  you 
that  puzzles  me  very  much.  You  speak  of  yourself  as 
though  you  were  a  kind  of  Welsh  peasant  girl,  and  yet  your 
conversation — well,  I  mustn't  tell  you  what  I  think  of  that.' 

"This  made  me  laugh  outright,  for  ladies  who  called  on 
Miss  Dalrvmple  used  to  make  the  same  remark. 

"  'Mr.  D'Arcy,'  I  said,  'you  are  harbouring  the  greatest 
little  imposter  in  the  British  Islands.  I  am  the  mere  mock- 
ing-bird of  one  of  the  most  cultivated  women  living.  My 
true  note  is  that  of  a  simple  Welsh  bird.' 

"  'A  Welsh  nightingale,'  he  said,  with  a  smile,  'but  who 
was  the  original  impostor?' 
"  'Miss  Dalrymple,'  I  said. 

"  'Miss  Dalrymple,  the  writer ! — why  I  knew  her  years 
ago — before  you  were  born.' 

"Our  talk  had  been  so  lively  that  we  had  not  noticed  the 
passage  of  time,  nor  had  we  noticed  that  the  clouds  had 
been  gathering  for  a  summer  shower.  Suddenly  the  rain 
fell  heavily ;  although  we  ran  to  the  house,  we  were  quite 
wet  by  the  time  we  got  in. 

"We  found  poor  Mrs.  Titwing  in  a  great  state  of  excite- 
ment on  account  of  the  rain,  and  also  because  the  dinner  had 
been  waiting  for  nearlv  an  hour.  That  scamper  in  the  rain, 
and  the  laughing  and  joking  at  our  predicament,  seemed  to 
bring  us  closer  together  than  anytliincr  else  could  have  done. 
Mr.  D'Arcy  told  Mrs.  Titwing  to  take  me  to  my  room  to 


4o6  Aylwin 

change  my  dress  for  dinner,  and  he  seemed  quite  dis- 
appointed when  I  told  him  that  I  could  eat  no  dinner,  and 
would  like  to  retire  to  my  room  for  the  night.  The  fact 
was  that  the  events  of  that  wonderful  day  had  exhausted  all 
my  powers ;  every  nerve  within  me  seemed  crying  out  for 
sleep. 

"I  went  to  my  room,  dismissed  Mrs.  Titwing,  and  went 
to  bed  at  once.  But  no  sooner  had  I  got  into  bed  than  I 
began  to  perceive  that,  instead  of  sleep,  a  long  wakeful 
night  was  before  me.  Mr.  D'Arcy's  story  about  finding 
me  in  a  London  studio  took  entire  possession  of  my  mind. 
How  did  I  get  there?  Where  had  I  been  and  what  had  been 
my  adventures  before  I  got  there?  Why  did  the  painter,  in 
whose  studio  Mr.  D'Arcy  found  me,  believe  that  I  had  been 
supernaturally  sent  to  him?  I  shuddered  as  a  thousand 
dreadful  thoughts  flowed  into  my  mind.  'Mr.  D'Arcy,'  I 
said  to  myself,  'must  know  more  than  he  has  told  me.'  Then, 
of  course,  came  thoughts  about  you.  I  wondered  why  you 
had  allowed  me  to  drift  away  from  you  in  this  manner. 
True,  I  was  probably  removed  from  Raxton  immediately 
after  my  illness,  when  you  were  very  ill,  as  I  knew,  but  then 
you  had  recovered !" 


VII. 

When  Winifred  reached  this  point  in  her  story,  I  said : 

"And  so  you  wondered  what  had  become  of  me  from  your 
last  seeing  me  down  to  your  waking  up  in  Mr.  D'Arcy's 
house?" 

"Yes,  yes,  Henry.  Do  tell  me  what  you  were  doing  all 
that  time." 

As  she  said  these  words  the  whole  tragedy  of  my  life  re- 
turned to  me  in  one  moment,  and  yet  in  that  moment  I  lived 
over  again  every  dreadful  incident  and  every  dreadful  de- 
tail. The  spectacle  on  the  sands,  the  search  for  her  in 
North  Wales,  the  meeting  in  the  cottage,  the  frightful  sight 
as  she  leapt  away  from  me  on  Snowdon,  the  heart-breaking 
search  for  her  among  the  mountains,  the  sound  of  her  voice, 
singing  by  the  theatre  portico  in  the  rain,  the  search  for  her 
in  the  hideous  London  streets,  the  scenes  in  the  studios,  the 
soul-blastine'  drama  in  Primrose  Court — all  came  upon  me 


The   Daughter  of  Snowdon's  Story     407 

in  such  a  succession  of  realities  that  the  beautiful  radiant 
creature  now  talking  to  me  seemed  impossible  except  as  a 
figure  in  a  dream.  And  she  was  asking  me  to  tell  her 
what  I  had  been  doing  during  all  these  months  of  night- 
mare. But  I  knew  that  I  never  could  tell  her,  either  now 
or  at  any  future  time.  I  knew  that  to  tell  her  would  be  to 
kill  her. 

"Winnie,"  I  said,  "I  will  tell  you  all  about  myself,  but  I 
must  hear  your  story  first.  The  faster  you  get  on  with  that 
the  sooner  you  will  hear  what  I  have  to  tell." 

"Then  I  will  get  on  fast,"  said  she.  "After  a  while  my 
thoughts,  as  I  tossed  on  my  bed.  turned  from  the  past  to 
the  future.  What  was  the  future  that  was  lying  before  me? 
For  months  I  had  evidently  been  living  on  the  charity  of 
Mr.  D'Arcy.  My  only  excuse  for  having  done  so  was  that 
I  was  entirely  unconscious  of  it ;  but  now  that  I  did  know 
the  relations  between  us  I  must  of  course  end  them  at  once. 
But  what  was  I  to  do?  Whither  was  I  to  go?  Besides 
Miss  Dalrymple,  whose  address  I  did  not  know,  I  had  no 
friends  except  Sinfi  Lovell  and  the  Gypsies  and  a  few 
Welsh  farmers.  To  live  upon  my  benefactor's  generous 
charity  now  that  I  was  conscious  of  it  was,  I  felt,  impossible. 

"I  was  penniless.  I  had  not  even  money  to  pay  my  rail- 
way fare  to  any  part  of  England.  There  was  only  one  thing 
for  me  to  do — write  to  you.  When  I  rose  in  the  morning 
it  was  with  the  full  determination  to  write  to  you  at  once. 
I  had  been  told  by  Mrs.  Titwing  that  Mr.  D'Arcy  always 
breakfasted  alone  in  a  little  ante-room  adjoining  his  bed- 
room, and  always  breakfasted  late.  My  breakfast,  she  said, 
would  be  prepared  in  what  she  called  the  little  green  room. 
And  when  I  left  my  bedroom,  dressed  in  a  morning  dress 
that  was  carefully  laid  out  for  me.  I  found  the  housekeeper 
moving  about  in  the  passages.  She  conducted  me  to  the 
little  green  room.  On  the  walls  were  two  looking-glasses 
in  old  black  oak  frames,  carved  with  knights  at  tilt  and 
angels'  heads  hovering  above  them.  Each  frame  contained 
two  circular  mirrors  surrounded  by  painted  designs,  telling 
the  story  of  the  Holy  Grail.  The  room  was  furnished  with 
quaint  sofas  and  chairs  on  which  beautiful  little  old-fash- 
ioned designs  were  painted.  She  told  me  that  as  I  had  not 
named  an  hour  for  breakfasting  I  should  have  to  wait  about 
twenty  minutes. 

"In  one  corner  of  the  room  was  a  rather  large  whatnot, 


4o8  Aylwin 

on  which  lay  one  or  two  French  novels  in  green  and  yellow 
paper  covers  and  a  few  daily  and  weekly  newspapers,  which 
I  went  and  turned  over.  Among  them  I  was  startled  to  find 
a  paper  called  the  Raxton  Gazette.  But  I  saw  at  once  how 
it  got  there,  for  written  on  the  margin  at  the  top  of  the 
paper  was  the  address,  'Dr.  Mivart,  Winipole  Street,  Lon- 
don.' Mr.  D'Arcy  had  told  me  that  the  gentleman  whose 
voice  I  heard  behind  the  screen  was  the  medical  man  who 
attended  to  me  during  my  illness,  and  it  now  suddenly 
flashed  upon  my  mind  that  at  Raxton  there  was  a  Dr. 
Alivart,  though  I  had  never  seen  him  during  my  stay  there. 
These  were,  no  doubt,  one  and  the  same  person,  and  some 
one  from  Raxton  had  posted  the  newspaper  to  the  doctor's 
house  in  London. 

"I  looked  down  the  columns  of  the  paper  with  a  very 
lively  interest,  and  my  eye  was  soon  caught  by  a  paragraph 
encircled  by  a  thick  blue  pencil  mark.  It  gave  from  a  paper 
called  the  London  Satirist  what  professed  to  be  a  long  ac- 
count of  you,  in  which  it  was  said  that  you  were  living  in  a 
bungalow  in  Wales  with  a  Gypsy  girl." 

When  Winifred  said  this  I  forgot  my  promise  not  to  in- 
terrupt her  narrative,  and  exclaimed  : 

"And  you  believed  this  infamous  libel,  Winnie?" 
"To  say  that  I  believed  it  as  a  simple  statement  of  fact 
would  of  course  be  wrong.    I  never  doubted  that  you  loved 
me  as  a  child." 

"As  a  child !  Do  you  then  think  that  I  did  not  love  you 
that  night  on  Raxton  sands?" 

"I  did  not  doubt  that  you  loved  me  then.  But  wealth,  I 
had  been  told,  is  so  demoralising  and  I  thought  your  never 
coming  forward  to  find  me  and  protect  me  in  my  illness 
might  have  something  to  do  with  inconstancy.  Anyhow, 
these  thoughts  combined  with  my  dread  of  your  mother  to 
prevent  me  writing  you." 

"Winnie,  Winnie !"  I  said,  "these  theories  of  the  so- 
called  advanced  thinkers,  whom  your  aunt  taught  you 
to  believe  in — these  ideas  that  love  and  wealth  cannot 
exist  together,  are  prejudices  as  narrow  and  as  blind  as 
those  of  an  opposite  kind  which  have  sapped  the  natures 
of  certain  members  of  my  own  family." 

"The  sight  of  your  dear  sad  face  when  I  first  saw  it  here 
was  proof  enough  of  that,"  she  said.  "As  your  life  was 
said  to  be  that  of  a  wanderer,  1  did  not  care  to  write  to 


The   Daughter  of  Snowdon's  Story     409 

Raxton,  and  I  did  not  know  where  to  address  you.  What 
I  had  read  in  the  newspaper,  I  need  not  tell  you,  troubled 
me  greatly.  I  cried  bitterly,  and  made  but  a  poor  breakfast. 
After  it  was  over  Mr.  D'Arcy  entered  the  room,  and  shook 
me  warmly  by  the  hand.  He  saw  that  I  had  been  crying, 
and  he  stood  silent  and  seemed  to  be  asking  himself  the 
cause.  Drawing  a  chair  towards  me,  and  taking  a  seat,  he 
said : 

"  'I  fear  you  have  not  slept  well,  Miss  Wynne.' 

"  'Not  very  well,'  I  answered.  Then,  looking  at  him,  I 
said,  'Mr.  D'Arcy,  I  have  something  to  say  to  you,  and 
this  is  the  moment  for  saying  it.' 

"He  gave  a  startled  look,  as  though  he  guessed  what  I 
was  going  to  say. 

"  'And  I  have  something  to  say  to  you,  Miss  Wynne,' 
he  said,  smiling,  'and  this  seems  the  proper  time  for  saying 
it.  Up  to  the  last  few  weeks  a  young  gentleman  from 
Oxford  has  been  acting  as  my  secretary.  He  has  now 
left  me,  and  I  am  seeking  another.  His  duties,  I  must 
say,  have  not  been  what  would  generally  be  called  severe. 
I  write  most  of  my  own  letters,  though  not  all,  and  my 
correspondence  is  far  from  being  large.  His  chief  duty  has 
been  that  of  reading  to  me  in  the  evening.  For  many  years 
my  eyes  have  not  been  so  strong  as  a  painter's  ought  to 
be,  and  the  oculist  whom  I  consulted  told  me  that  the 
strain  of  the  painter's  work  was  quite  as  much  as  my  eyes 
ought  to  bear,  and  that  I  could  not  afford  much  eyesight 
for  reading  purposes.  I  am  passionately  fond  of  reading. 
To  be  without  the  pleasure  that  books^can  afford  me  would 
be  to  make  me  miserable,  and  I  have  looked  upon  my 
secretary's  duty  of  reading  aloud  to  me  as  an  important 
one.  If  you  would  take  his  place  you  would  be  conferring 
the  greatest  service  upon  me.' 

"  'Mr.  D'Arcy,'  I  said,  'I  suspect  you.' 

"'Suspect  me.  Miss  Wynne?' 

"  'I  suspect  that  generous  heart  of  yours.  I  suspect 
you  are  merely  inventing  a  post  for  me  to  fill,  because  you 
pity  me.' 

"  'No,  Miss  Wynne;  upon  my  honour  this  is  not  so.  I 
will  not  deny  that  if  it  were  not  in  your  power  to  do  me 
the  service  that  I  ask  of  you,  I  should  still  feel  the  greatest 
disappointment  if  you  passed  from  under  this  roof.  Your 
scruples  about  living  here  as  you  lived  during  your  illness 


410  Aylwin 

simply  as  my  guest — I  understand,  but  do  not  approve. 
They  show  that  you  are  not  quite  so  free  from  the  bondage 
of  custom  as  I  should  like  every  friend  of  mine  to  be.  The 
tie  of  friendship  is,  in  my  judgment,  the  strongest  of  all 
ties,  stronger  than  that  of  blood,  because  it  springs  from 
the  natural  kinship  of  soul  to  soul,  and  there  is  no  reason 
in  the  world  why  I  should  not  offer  you  a  home  as  a 
friend,  or  why,  if  the  circumstances  of  our  lives  were  re- 
versed, you  should  not  offer  me  one.  But  in  this  case 
it  is  the  fact  that  the  service  I  am  asking  you  to  render  me 
is  greater  than  any  service  I  can  render  you.' 

"I  was  so  deeply  touched  by  his  words  and  by  his  way 
of  speaking  them,  that  my  lips  trembled,  and  I  could  make 
no  reply. 

"  Tt  is  a  shame,'  he  said,  'for  me  to  talk  about  business, 
so  soon  after  your  recovery.  Let  us  leave  the  matter  for 
the  moment,  and  come  to  me  in  the  studio  during  the 
morning,  and  let  me  show  you  the  pictures  I  am  painting, 
and  some  of  my  choice  things.' 

"The  morning  wore  on,  and  still  I  sat  pondering  over 
the  situation  in  which  I  found  myself.  The  servant  came 
and  moved  the  breakfast  things,  and  her  furtive  glances 
at  me  showed  that  I  was  an  object  at  once  familiar  and 
strange  to  her.  But  very  little  attention  did  I  pay  to  her, 
in  such  a  whirl  of  thoughts  as  I  then  was.  The  moment 
that  one  course  of  action  seemed  to  me  the  best,  the  very 
opposite  would  occur  to  me  as  being  the  best.  However, 
I  was  determined  to  ft:now  from  Mr.  D'Arcy,  and  at  once, 
what  was  the  state  in  which  I  was  when  I  was  brought  to 
this  place,  and  what  had  been  the  course  of  my  life  during 
my  stay  here.  Mr.  D'Arcy  had  told  me  that,  for  reasons 
which  he  so  touchingly  alluded  to,  he  had  not  used  me 
as  a  model.  How,  then,  had  my  time  been  passed? 
To  question  poor  Mrs.  Titwing  would  only  be  to 
frighten  her.  I  would  ask  Mr.  D'Arcy  for  a  full  con- 
fession. 

"Mrs.  Titwing  came  into  the  room.  She  began  pulling 
at  the  ribbon  of  her  black  silk  apron  as  though  she  wanted 
to  speak  and  could  not  find  the  proper  words.  At  last 
she  said : 

"  T  hope,  miss,  there  have  been  no  words  between  you 
and  Mr.  D'Arcy?' 


The   Daughter  of  Snowdon's  Story     411 

"'Words  between  nic  and  Mr.  D'Arcy?  What  do  you 
mean  ?'  I  asked. 

"  'He  seems  very  much  upset,  miss,  about  something. 
He  is  not  at  his  easel,  but  keeps  walking  about  the  studio, 
and  every  now  and  then  he  asks  where  you  are.  I'm  sure 
he  used  to  dote  on  you  when  you  were  a  child,  miss.' 

"'When  I  was  a  child?'  I  said,  laughing.  'But  I  see 
what  it  is,  I  have  been  very  neglectful.  I  promised  to  go 
into  the  studio  to  see  the  pictures,  and  he  is,  of  course, 
impatient  at  my  keeping  him  waiting.  I  will  go  to  him 
at  once,'  and  I  went. 

"When  I  entered  the  studio  he  turned  quickly  round 
and  said  : 

"  'Well  ?' 

"  'You  were  so  kind,'  I  said,  'as  to  invite  me  to  see  your 
treasures.' 

"  'To  be  sure,'  he  said.  'I  thought  you  came  to  give 
your  decision.' 

"He  then  showed  me  the  curious  divan  upon  which  I 
had  rested  the  day  before,  and  explained  to  me  the  meaning 
of  the  carved  designs." 


VHI. 

Winifred  described  the  designs  on  the  divan  so  vividly 
that  I  could  almost  see  them.  But  what  interested  me 
was  the  painter,  not  his  surroundings ;  and  she  now  seemed 
to  grow  weary  of  talking  about  herself. 

"Did  he,"  I  said,  "did  he  say  anything  about — about 
painters'  models?" 

"Yes,"  she  continued,  "Mr.  D'Arcy  took  me  to  an  easel 
and  showed  me  a  picture.  It  was  only  the  half-length  of 
a  woman ;  but  it  was  a  tragedy  rendered  fully  by  the  ex- 
pression on  one  woman's  face. 

"  'I  had  no  idea,'  I  said,  'that  any  picture — any  picture 
of  a  single  face — could  do  such  work  as  that.  Was  this 
painted  from  a  model?' 

"Yes,'  he  said  with  a  smile,  which  was  evidently  at  my 
ignorance  of  art.    'It  was  painted  from  life.' 

"There  were  four  other  half-lengths  in  the  room,  all  of 
them  very  beautiful. 


412  Aylwin 

"  'Two  of  these,'  he  said,  'are  copies,  the  originals  have 
been  sold.  The  other  two  need  still  a  few  touches  to  make 
them  complete.' 

"  'And  they  were  all  painted  from  life  ?'  I  said. 

"  'Yes,'  he  said.    'Why  do  you  repeat  that  question?' 

"  'Because,'  I  said,  'although  they  are  all  so  wonderful 
and  so  beautiful  in  colour,  I  can  see  a  great  diflference  be- 
tween them — I  can  scarcely  say  what  the  difference  is. 
They  are  evidently  all  painted  by  the  same  artist,  but 
painted  in  different,  moods  of  the  artist's  mind.' 

"  'Ah,'  he  said,  'I  am  much  interested.  Let  me  see  you 
classify  them  according  to  your  view.  There  are,  as  you 
see,  two  brunettes  and  two  blondes.' 

"  'Yes,'  I  said,  'between  this  grand  brunette,  to  use  your 
own  expression,  holding  a  pomegranate  in  her  hand  and 
the  other  brunette  whose  beautiful  eyes  are  glistening  and 
laughing  over  the  fruit  she  is  holding  up,  there  is  the  same 
difference  that  there  is  between  the  blonde's  face  under 
the  apple  blossoms  and  the  other  blonde's  face  of  the  figure 
that  is  listening  to  music.  In  both  faces  the  difference  seems 
to  be  that  of  the  soul.' 

"  'The  two  faces,'  said  he,  'in  which  you  see  what  you  call 
soul  are  painted  from  two  dear  friends  of  mine — ladies  of 
high  intelligence  and  great  accomplishments,  who  occa- 
sionally honour  me  by  giving  me  sittings — the  other  two 
are  painted  from  two  of  the  finest  hired  models  to  be  found 
in  London.' 

"  'Then,'  I  said,  'an  artist's  success  depends  a  great  deal 
upon  his  model  ?    I  had  no  idea  of  such  a  thing.' 

"  'It  does  indeed,'  he  said.  'Such  success  as  I  have  won 
since  my  great  loss  is  very  largely  owing  to  those  two 
ladies,  one  so  grand  and  the  other  so  sweet,  whom  you  are 
admiring.' 

"The  way  in  which  he  spoke  the  words  'since  my  great 
loss'  almost  brought  tears  into  my  eyes.  He  then  went 
round  the  room,  and  explained  in  a  delightful  way  the 
various  pictures  and  objects  of  interest.  I  felt  that  I  was 
preventing  him  from  working,  and  told  him  so. 

"  'You  are  very  thoughtful,'  he  said,  'but  I  can  only  paint 
when  I  feel  the  impulse  within  me,  and  to-day  I  am  lazy. 
But  while  you  go  and  get  your  luncheon — I  do  not  lunch 
myself — I  must  try  to  do  something.  You  must  have  many 
matters  of  your  own  that  you  would  like  to  attend  to.    Will 


The  Daughter  of  Snowdon's  Story     413 

you  return  to  the  studio  about  five  o'clock,  and  let  me  have 
your  company  in  another  walk?' 

"Until  five  o'clock  I  was  quite  alone,  and  wandered 
about  the  house  and  garden  trying  my  memory  as  to 
whether  I  could  recall  something,  but  in  vain.  At  any 
other  time  than  this  I  should  no  doubt  have  found  the 
old  house  a  very  fascinating  one ;  but  not  for  two  minutes 
together  could  my  mind  dwell  upon  anything  but  the 
amazing  situation  in  which  I  found  myself.  The  house 
was,  I  saw,  built  of  grey  stone,  and  as  it  had  seven  gables 
it  suggested  to  me  Nathaniel  Hawthorne's  famous  story, 
of  which  my  aunt  was  so  fond.  Inside  I  found  every  room 
to  be  more  or  less  interesting.  But  what  attracted  me 
most,  I  think,  was  a  series  of  large  attics  in  which  was  a 
number  of  enormous  oak  beams  supporting  the  antique 
roof.  With  the  sunlight  pouring  through  the  windows  and 
illuminating  almost  every  corner,  the  place  seemed  cheerful 
enough,  but  I  could  not  help  thinking  how  ghostly  it  must 
look  on  a  moonlight  night. 

"While  the  thought  was  in  my  mind,  a  strange  sensation 
came  upon  me.  I  seemed  to  hear  a  moan ;  it  came  through 
the  door  of  the  large  attic  adjoining  the  one  in  which  I 
stood,  and  then  I  heard  a  voice  that  seemed  familiar  to  me, 
and  yet  I  could  not  recall  it.  It  was  repeating  in  a  loud, 
agonised  tone  the  words  of  that  curse  written  on  the  parch- 
ment scroll  which  I  picked  up  on  Raxton  sands.  I  was  so  as- 
tonished that  for  a  long  time  I  could  think  of  nothing  else. 


IX.  • 

"At  five  o'clock  I  was  going  towards  the  studio  to  keep  my 
appointment  when  I  met  Mr.  D'Arcy  in  his  broad-brimmed 
felt  hat,  ready  and  waiting  for  me  to  take  the  proposed  walk 
with  him. 

"Oh,  what  a  lovely  afternoon  it  was !  A  Welsh  afternoon 
could  not  have  been  lovelier.  In  fact  it  carried  my  mind 
back  here.  The  sun,  shining  on  the  buttercups  and  the 
grey-tufted  standing  grass,  made  the  meadows  look  as 
though  covered  with  a  tapestry  that  shifted  from  grey  to 


414  Aylwin 

lavender,  and  then  from  lavender  to  gold — as  the  soft  breeze 
moved  over  it.  And  many  of  the  birds  were  still  in  full  song; 
and  brilliant  as  was  the  music  of  the  skylarks,  the  black- 
birds and  thrushes  were  so  numerous  that  the  music  falling 
from  the  sky  seemed  caught  and  swallowed  up  by  the  music 
rising  from  the  hedgerows  and  trees. 

"I  lingered  at  one  of  the  gates  through  which  we  passed 
to  enjoy  the  beauty  undisturbed  by  the  motion  of  my  own 
body. 

"  'I  have  often  wished,'  Mr.  D'Arcy  said,  'that  I  had  a 
tithe  of  your  passion  for  Nature,  and  all  your  knowledge 
of  Nature.  To  have  been  born  in  London  and  to  have 
passed  one's  youth  there  is  a  great  loss.  Nature  has  to  be 
learnt,  as  art  has  to  be  learnt,  in  earliest  youth.' 

"  'What  makes  you  know  that  my  chief  passion  is  love  of 
Nature?'  I  asked. 

"  'It  was,'  he  said,  'the  one  thing  you  showed  during  your 
illness — during  your  unconscious  condition.' 

"  'And  yet  I  remember  nothing  of  that  time,'  I  said.  'This 
gives  me  an  opportunity  of  asking  you  something — an  op- 
portunity which  I  had  determined  to  make  for  myself  be- 
fore another  day  went  by.' 

"  'And  what  is  that?'  he  said,  in  a  tone  that  betrayed  some 
uneasiness. 

"  'You  have  told  me  how  I  came  here.  I  now  want  you 
to  tell  me,  too,  what  was  my  condition  when  I  came  and 
what  was  my  course  of  life  during  all  this  long  period.  How 
did  the  time  pass?    What  did  I  do?    I  remember  nothing.' 

"  'I  am  glad  you  are  asking  me  these  questions,'  he  said, 
'for  I  believe  that  the  more  fully  and  more  exactly  I  answer 
them,  the  better  for  you  and  the  better  for  me.  Victor 
Hugo,  in  one  of  his  romances,  speaks  of  the  pensive  som- 
nambulism of  the  animals.  "Somnambulism,"  sometimes 
pensive  and  sometimes  playful,  is  the  very  phrase  I  should 
use  in  characterising  your  condition  when  you  first  came 
here  and  down  to  your  recovery  from  that  strange  illness. 
But  this  somnambulism  would  every  now  and  then  change 
and  pass  into  a  consciousness  which  I  can  only  compare 
with  that  of  a  child.  But  no  child  that  I  have  ever  seen 
was  so  bewitchingly  child-like  as  you  were.  It  was  this 
that  made  your  presence  such  a  priceless  boon  to  me.' 

"  'Priceless  boon,  Mr.  D'Arcy!'  I  said.  'How  could  such 
a  being  as  you  describe  be  a  priceless  boon  to  any  one?' 


The   Daughter  of  Snovvdon's  Story     415 

"  "I  will  tell  you,'  he  replied.  'Even  before  that  great  sor- 
row which  has  made  me  the  loneliest  man  upon  the  earth — 
even  in  the  days  when  my  animal  spirits  were  considered  at 
times  almost  boisterous,  I  was  always  at  intervals  subject 
to  periods  of  great  depression,  or  rather,  I  should  say,  to 
periods  of  ennui.  I  must  either  be  painting  or  reading  or 
writing.  I  had  not  the  precious  faculty  of  being  able  on  oc- 
casions to  sit  and  let  the  rich  waters  of  life  flow  over  me. 
I  would  yearn  for  amusement,  and  search  in  vain  for  some 
object  to  amuse  me.  When  you  first  came  I  was  deeply 
interested  in  so  extraordinary  a  case  as  yours ;  and  after 
a  while,  when  the  acuteness  of  my  curiosity  and  the 
poignancy  of  my  sympathy  for  you  had  abated,  you  be- 
came to  me  a  joy,  as  a  child  is  a  joy  in  the  eyes  of  its 
parents.' 

"  'Then  your  interest  in  me,'  I  said  with  a  smile,  'was  that 
which  you  would  feel  towards  a  puppy  or  a  kitten.' 

"  'I  perceive  that  you  have  a  turn  for  satire,'  he  said, 
laughing.  'I  will  not  deny  that  I  have  an  extraordinarily 
strong  passion  for  watching  the  movements  of  animals.  I 
have,  to  the  sorrow  of  my  neighbours,  filled  my  garden  in 
London  with  all  kinds  of  purchases  from  Jamrach's.  But 
from  the  moment  that  I  knew  you,  who  combined  the  fas- 
cination of  a  fawn  and  a  child  with  that  of  a  sylph  or  a  fairy, 
my  poor  little  menagerie  was  neglected,  and  what  became  of 
its  members  I  scarcely  know.  I  suppose  I  am  very  uncompli- 
mentary to  you,  but  you  would  have  the  truth.  The  mo- 
ment that  I  felt  myself  threatened  by  the  fiend  Ennui  I  used 
to  tell  Mrs.  Titwing,  who  was  in  the  habit  of  calling  you  her 
baby,  to  bring  you  into  the  studio,  and  at  once  the  fiend 
fled.  At  last  I  grew  so  attached  to  you  that  your  presence 
was  a  positive  necessity  of  my  life.  Unless  I  knew  that  you 
were  in  the  studio  I  could  not  paint.  It  was  necessary  for 
me  at  intervals  to  look  across  the  room  at  that  divan  and 
see  you  there  amusing  yourself — playing  with  yourself,  so 
to  speak,  sometimes  like  a  kitten,  sometimes  like  a  child.  I 
would  not  have  parted  with  you  for  the  world.' 

"He  did  not  say  he  would  not  now  part  with  me  for  the 
world,  Henry,  and  I  thought  I  understood  the  meaning  of 
that  expression  of  disappointnient  which  I  had  observed  in 
his  eyes  when  I  first  saw  them  looking  into  mine.  I  thought 
I  understood  this  extraordinary  man — so  unlike  all  others ; 
I  thought  I  knew  w^hy  my  eyes  lost  the  charm  he  was  now 


41 6  Aylwin 

so  eloquently  describing  to  me  the  moment  that  they  be- 
came lighted  with  what  he  called  self-consciousness. 

"After  a  while  I  said,  'But  as  I  was  in  such  an  uncon- 
scious state  as  you  describe,  how  could  you  possibly  know 
that  a  speciality  of  mine  is  a  love  of  Nature?' 

"  'It  was  only  when  you  were  out  in  the  open  air  that  the 
condition  which  I  have  compared  to  somnambulism  seemed 
at  times  to  disappear.  Then  your  consciousness  seemed  to 
spring  up  for  a  moment  and  to  take  heed  of  what  was  pass- 
ing around  you.  You  would  sometimes  scamper  through 
the  meadows,  pluck  the  wild  flowers  and  weave  them  into 
wreaths  round  your  head,  or  stand  listening  to  the  birds,  or 
hold  out  your  hands  as  if  to  embrace  the  sunny  wind.  One 
day  when  a  friend  of  mine,  a  great  angler,  who  comes  here, 
was  going  down  to  the  river  to  fish,  you  showed  the  greatest 
interest  in  what  was  going  on.  The  fisshing  tackle  seemed 
so  familiar  to  you  that  my  friend  put  a  fishing  rod  into  your 
hand  and  you  went  with  him  to  the  river.  I  do  not  myself 
care  for  angling,  and  I  was  at  the  time  very  busy  with  a 
picture,  but  I  could  not  resist  the  temptation  to  follow  you. 
You  skipped  into  the  punt  with  the  greatest  glee,  baited 
your  hook,  adjusted  your  float  on  the  line,  cast  it  into  the 
water,  and  fished  with  such  skill  that  you  caught  two  fish 
to  my  friend's  one.  Observing  all  these  things,  I  came  to 
the  conclusion  that  you  had  lived  much  in  the  open  air,  and 
other  incidents  made  me  know  that  you  were  a  great  lover 
of  Nature.' 

"  'And  you,'  I  said,  'must  also  be  a  lover  of  Nature,  or 
you  could  not  find  such  delight  in  watching  animals.' 

"  'No,'  he  said,  'the  interest  I  take  in  animals  has  nothing 
whatever  to  do  with  love  of  Nature  or  study  of  Nature. 
They  interest  me  by  that  unconsciousness  of  grace  that 
makes  them  such  a  contrast  to  man.' 

"We  then  went  into  the  house.  Our  talk  during  our 
ramble  in  the  fields  seemed  to  remove  effectually  all  awk- 
wardness and  restraint  between  us. 


The   Daughter  of  Snowdon's  Story     417 


X. 

"That  day,"  said  Winnie,  "a  determination  which  had  been 
caused  by  many  a  reflection  during  the  last  few  hours  in- 
duced me  at  dinner  to  lead  the  conversation  to  the  subject 
of  pictures  and  models,  and  in  a  few  minutes  Mr.  D'Arcy 
launched  out  in  an  eloquent  discourse  upon  a  subject  which 
was  so  new  to  me  and  so  familiar  to  him. 

"  'You  were  saying  this  morning,  Mr.  D'Arcy,'  I  said, 
'that  you  were  indebted — I  think  you  said  you  were  spe- 
cially indebted — to  your  models  for  your  success  as  a 
painter.' 

"  'Yes,'  he  said.  'For  many  years  a  strange  and  unex- 
ampled good  fortune  has  attended  me  in  regard  to  models. 
"Mock  modesty"  has  never  been  a  vice  of  mine;  I  say  what 
I  simply  mean  when  I  tell  you  that  without  this  good  luck 
in  regard  to  my  models  I  could  never  have  achieved  such  a 
position  as  is  now  mine.  But  why  do  you  keep  harping 
upon  this  subject?  Why  do  you  take  all  this  interest  in 
painters  and  their  models?' 

"  'Because  I  want  to  be  your  model,'  I  said. 

"He  turned  round  upon  me  with  an  expression  of  the 
greatest  delight  on  his  face. 

"  'My  dear  Miss  Wynne,'  he  said,  'I  should  never  have 
dared  to  ask  you  to  sit  to  me.  I  had  told  you  about  your 
sitting  in  an  unconscious  state  to  Wilderspin,  and  I  saw 
how  troubled  and  perplexed  you  were ;  and  now  that  you 
are  yourself  I  could  not  ask  you  to  sit  to  me.  Three  or 
four  pictures  painted  from  you  as  you  now  are  would  not 
clash  with  Wilderspin's  pictures,  the  expression  being  so 
entirely  different,  and  they  would  make  my  fortune  in  every 
way.' 

"  'Why,  what  caji  you  mean,  IMr.  D'Arcy?'  I  exclaimed  in 
amazement. 

"  'I  mean,'  he  said,  'that  I  have  never  yet  had  the  chance 
of  expressing  in  art  a  subtle  and  indescribable  quality  to  be 
found  in  some  few  faces  among  your  countrywomen — a 
quality  which  can  only  be  described  in  the  word  Cymric. 
Even  now,  while  I  am  talking  to  you,  the  subject  for  a  pic- 
ture has  come  to  mc — "The  Spirit  of  Snowdon."  ' 


41 8  Aylwin 

"I  clapped  my  hands  with  dehght. 

"  'It  would  be  a  complete  departure  from  my  present 
style,"  he  said,  "of  which  the  fickle  public  may  very  soon 
begin  to  weary.  But  I  fear  you  are  doing  this  kindness  to 
me — I  fear  you  are  offering  to  sit — because  of  the  services 
it  has  been  my  privilege  to  render  you.  If  you  knew  the 
service  your  company  has  rendered  me,  you  would  realise 
how  immeasurably  I  have  been  overpaid.' 

"  'Mr.  D'Arcy,'  I  said,  'I  have  every  reason  to  do  what  I 
want  to  do  through  gratitude,  but  the  woman  does  not  live 
who  would  not  feel  herself  exalted  by  being  turned  to  such 
use  by  your  genius.  The  woman  wdio  sits  as  a  model  for  a 
great  painter  in  an  immortal  picture  becomes  in  a  way  a 
priestess  herself  of  Art.  Her  mission  is  only  less  than  the 
painter's  in  nobility.  And  as  to  sitting  for  "The  Spirit  of 
Snowdon,"  what  girl  having  within  her  breast  the  Cymric 
passion  which  nothing  can  quench  would  not  feel  that  to  do 
so  was  almost  presumption?  I  hope  you  will  let  me  sit  to 
you  as  soon  as  you  can.' " 

"And  so  you  sat  for  the  Spirit  of  Snowdon,  Winnie,"  I 
said. 

"Yes,"  said  Winnie ;  "I  gave  him  several  sittings." 

"Ah,  I  can  imagine  the  glorious  result,"  I  said. 

"Can  you?"  said  Winnie.  "The  glorious  result  was  a 
failure,  as  Mr.  D'Arcy  himself  was  the  first  to  admit." 

"What !"  I  exclaimed,  "he  failed  with  a  daughter  of 
Snowdon  for  model?" 

"To  paint  'The  Spirit  of  Snowdon'  a  painter,  it  seems, 
wants  something  more  than  a  daughter  of  Snowdon  for 
model,"  said  Winnie.  "He  needs  sympathy — full  and  un- 
divided sympathy — with  the  race  to  whom  Snowdon  has 
been  given.  The  picture  was  a  failure  and  was  soon 
abandoned." 


XL 

Either  because  she  was  wearied  of  talking  about  herself 
and  her  adventures,  or  because  she  was  now  approaching 
some  point  in  her  story  which  it  was  not  pleasing  to  dwell 
upon,  Winnie  again  proposed  that  her  narrative  should  end 
here,  at  least  for  a  time,  and  urged  me  to  tell  her  what  had 


The   Daughter  of  Snowdon's  Story     419 

befallen  myself  since  we  had  parted  at  the  cottage  door  at 
Raxton.  Even  had  it  been  possible  for  me  to  talk  about 
myself  without  touching  upon  some  dangerous  incident  or 
another,  my  impatience  to  get  at  the  mystery  of  mysteries 
in  connection  with  her  and  her  rescue  from  Primrose  Court 
was  so  great  that  I  could  only  implore  her  to  tell  me  what 
had  occurred  down  to  her  leaving  Hurstcote  Manor,  and 
also  what  had  been  the  cause  of  her  leaving. 

"Well,"  said  Winnie,  "I  am  now  going  to  tell  you  of  an 
extraordinary  thing  that  happened.  One  fine  night  the 
moon  was  so  brilliant  that  after  I  quitted  Mr.  D'Arcy  I 
stole  out  of  the  side  door  into  the  garden,  a  favourite  place 
of  mine,  for  old  English  flowers  were  mixed  with  apple 
trees  and  pear  trees.  I  was  strolling  about  the  garden, 
thinking  over  a  thousand  things  connected  with  you,  and 
myself,  and  Mr.  D'Arcy,  when  I  saw  stooping  over  a  flower 
bed  the  figure  of  a  tall  woman.  I  could  scarcely  believe 
my  eyes,  for  I  had  all  the  while  supposed  that,  excepting 
Mr.  D'Arcy,  myself,  and  Mrs.  Titwing,  the  servants  were 
the  only  occupants  of  the  place.  I  turned  away,  and  walked 
silently  through  the  little  wacket  into  what  is  called  the 
home  close.  As  I  pondered  over  the  incident,  I  recalled 
certain  things  which  singly  had  produced  no  effect  on  my 
mind,  but  which  now  fitted  in  with  each  other,  and  seemed 
to  open  up  vistas  of  mystery  and  suspicion.  Mysterious 
looks  and  gestures  on  the  faces  of  the  servants  pointed  to 
there  being  some  secret  that  was  to  be  kept  from  me.  I 
had  not  given  much  heed  to  these  things,  but  now  I  could 
not  help  connecting  them  with  the  appearance  of  the  tall 
woman  in  the  garden. 

"Some  guests  arrived  next  day,  and  when  I  pleaded 
headache  Mr.  D'Arcy  said,  'Perhaps  you  would  rather  keep 
to  your  own  room  to-day.' 

"I  told  him  I  should,  and  I  spent  the  day  alone — spent 
it  mainly  in  thinking  about  the  tall  woman.  In  the  evening 
I  went  into  the  garden,  and  remained  there  for  a  long  time, 
but  no  tall  woman  made  her  appearance. 

"I  passed  out  through  the  wicket  into  the  home  close, 
and  as  I  walked  about  in  the  grass,  vmder  the  elms  that 
sprang  up  from  the  tall  hedge,  I  thought  and  thought  over 
what  I  had  seen,  but  could  come  to  no  explanation.  I  was 
standing  under  a  tree,  in  the  shadow  which  its  branches 


420  Aylwin 

made,  when  I  became  suddenly  conscious  that  the  tall 
woman  was  close  to  me.  I  turned  round,  and  stood  face  to 
face  with  Sinfi  Lovell.  The  sight  of  a  spectre  could  not 
have  startled  me  more,  but  the  effect  of  my  appearance 
upon  her  was  greater  still.  Her  face  took  an  expression 
that  seemed  to  curdle  my  blood,  and  she  shrieked,  'Father ! 
the  curse !  Let  his  children  be  vagabonds  and  beg  their 
bread;  let  them  seek  it  also  out  of  desolate  places.'  And 
then  she  ran  towards  the  house. 

"In  a  few  minutes  Mr.  D'Arcy  came  out  into  the  field 
without  his  hat,  and  evidently  much  agitated. 

"  'Miss  Wynne,'  he  said,  'I  fear  you  must  have  been  half 
frightened  to  death.  Never  was  there  such  an  unlucky 
contretemps.'' 

"  'But  why  is  Sinfi  Lovell  here?'  I  said,  'and  why  was  I 
not  told  she  was  here?' 

"  'Sinfi  is  an  old  friend  of  mine,'  he  said.  'I  have  been 
in  the  habit  of  using  her  as  a  model  for  pictures.  She  came 
here  to  sit  to  me,  when  she  was  taken  ill.  She  is  subject  to 
fits,  as  you  have  seen.  The  doctor  believed  that  they  were 
over  and  would  not  recur,  and  I  had  determined  that  to- 
morrow I  would  bring  you  together.' 

"I  made  no  reply,  but  walked  silently  by  his  side  across 
the  field  to  the  little  wicket.  The  confidence  I  had  reposed 
in  Mr.  D'Arcy  had  been  like  the  confidence  a  child  reposes 
in  its  father. 

"  'Miss  Wynne,'  he  said,  in  a  voice  full  of  emotion,  'I  feel 
that  an  unlucky  incident  has  come  between  us,  and  yet  if 
I  ever  did  anything  for  your  good,  it  was  when  I  decided 
to  postpone  revealing  the  fact  that  Sinfi  Lovell  was  under 
this  roof  until  her  cure  was  so  complete  and  decisive  that 
you  could  never  by  any  chance  receive  the  shock  that  you 
have  now  received.' 

"I  felt  that  my  resentment  was  melting  in  the  music  of  his 
words. 

"  'What  caused  the  fits?'  I  said.  'She  talked  about  being 
under  a  curse.    What  can  it  mean  ?' 

"  'That,'  he  said,  'is  too  long  a  story  for  me  to  tell  you 
now.' 

"  'I  know,'  said  I,  'that  some  time  ago  the  tomb  of  Mr. 
Aylwin's  father  was  violated  by  some  undiscovered  mis- 
creant, and  I  know  that  the  words  Sinfi  uttered  just  now  are 
the  words  of  a  curse  written  by  the  dead  man  on  a  piece  of 


The  Daughter  of  Snowdon's  Story     421 

parchment,  and  stolen  with  a  jewel  from  his  tomb.  I  have 
seen  the  parchment  itself,  and  I  know  the  words  well.  Her 
father,  Panuel  Lovell,  is  as  innocent  of  the  crime  of  sacri- 
lege as  my  poor  father  was.  What  could  have  made  her 
suppose  that  she  had  inherited  the  curse  from  her  father?' 

"  'I  have  no  explanation  to  offer,'  he  said.  'As  you  know 
so  much  of  the  matter  and  I  know  so  little,  I  am  inclined 
to  ask  you  for  some  explanation  of  the  puzzle.' 

"I  thought  over  the  matter  for  a  minute,  and  then  I  said 
to  him,  'Sinfi  Lovell  knows  Raxton  as  well  as  Snowdon, 
and  must  have  been  very  familiar  with  the  crime.  I  can 
only  suppose  that  she  has  brooded  so  long  over  the  enor- 
mity of  the  ofifence  and  the  appalling  words  of  the  curse 
that  she  has  actually  come  at  last  to  believe  that  poor,  sim- 
ple-minded Panuel  Lovell  is  the  offender,  and  that  she,  as 
his  child,  has  inherited  the  curse.' 

"  'A  most  admirable  solution  of  the  mystery,'  he  said,  his 
face  beaming-  with  delight." 


XIL 

When  Winnie  got  to  this  point  she  said,  "Yes,  Henry,  poor 
Sinfi  seems  in  some  unaccountable  way  to  have  learnt  all 
about  that  piece  of  parchment  and  the  curse  written  upon 
it.  She  has  been  under  the  extraordinary  delusion  that  her 
father,  poor  Panuel  Lovell,  was  the  violator  of  the  tomb, 
and  that  she  has  inherited  the  curse." 

"Good  God,  Winnie!"  I  exclaimed;  and  when  I  recalled 
what  I  had  seen  of  Sinfi  in  the  cottage.  I  was  racked  with 
perplexity,  pity  and  wonder.    What  could  it  mean? 

"Yes,"  said  Winifred,  "she  has  been  possessed  by  this 
astounding  delusion,  and  it  used  to  bring  on  fits  which  were 
appalling  to  witness.     They  are  passed  now,  however." 

"Is  she  recovered  now?" 

"Mr.  D'Arcy,"  said  Winnie,  "assured  me  that,  in  the 
opinion  of  the  doctor,  the  delusion  would  not  be  perma- 
nent, but  that  Sinfi  would  soon  be  entirely  restored  to 
health.  While  Mr.  D'Arcy  and  I  were  talking  about  her 
Sinfi  came  through  the  wicket  again.  Rushing  up  to  me 
and  seizing  my  hand,  she  said ; 


42  2  Aylwin 

"  'Oh,  Winnie,  how  I  must  have  skeared  you !  I  dare 
say  Mr.  D'Arcy  has  told  you  that  I've  been  subject  to  fits 
o'  late.  It  was  comin'  on  you  suddint  as  I  did  under  the 
tree  that  brought  it  on.  I  wouldn't  let  Mr.  D'Arcy  tell  you 
I  wur  here  until  I  wur  quite  sure  I  should  have  no  more  on 
'em,  but  the  doctor  said  this  very  day  that  I  wur  now  quite 
well.' 

''My  mind  ran  all  night  long  upon  the  mystery  of  Sinfi 
Lovell.  ]\lr.  D'Arcy's  explanation  of  her  appearance  at 
Hurstcote  Manor  was  certainly  clear  enough,  but  some- 
how its  very  clearness  aroused  suspicion — no,  I  will  not 
say  suspicion — misgivings.  If  he  had  been  able,  while  he 
seemed  so  frank  and  open,  to  keep  away  from  me  a  secret — 
I  mean  the  secret  of  Sinfi  Lovell's  being  concealed  in  the 
house — what  secrets  might  he  not  be  concealing  from  me 
about  my  own  mystery?  Did  he  not  know  everything  that 
occurred  during  that  period  which  was  a  blank  in  my  mind, 
the  period  from  my  sinking  down  on  the  sands  to  my  wak- 
ing up  in  his  house  ? 

"From  the  very  first,  indeed,  a  feeling  of  mystery  had 
haunted  me.  I  had  often  pondered  over  every  circum- 
stance that  attended  my  waking  into  life,  but  that  incident 
which  was  the  most  firmly  fixed  in  my  mind  was  the  sight 
of  the  feet  of  a  tall  woman  whose  body  was  hid  by  the 
screen  between  my  couch  and  the  other  one.  When  I 
asked  Mr.  D'Arcy  about  this,  he  did  not  say  in  so  many 
words  that  I  was  suffering  from  a  delusion  about  those  feet, 
but  he  talked  about  the  illusion  which  generally  accom- 
panied a  recovery  from  such  illnesses  as  mine.  Now  of 
course  I  felt  sure  that  Sinfi  was  the  person  I  had  seen  on 
the  couch.    But  why  was  she  there? 

"I  did  not  see  Mr.  D'Arcy  until  the  afternoon  after  the 
guests  had  left,  for  in  order  to  avoid  seeing  him  and  them, 
I  took  a  long  stroll  by  the  river  and  then  got  into  the  punt. 
I  had  scarcely  done  so  when  Sinfi  appeared  on  the  bank 
and  hailed  me.  I  took  her  into  the  punt.  She  was  so  en- 
tirely herself  that  I  found  it  difficult  to  believe  in  the  start- 
ling spectacle  of  the  previous  evening,  although  her  expres- 
sion was  careworn,  and  she  certainly  looked  a  little  paler 
than  she  used  to  look  when  she  and  I  and  Rhona  Boswell 
were  such  great  friends ;  her  splendid  beauty  and  bearing 
were  as  striking  as  ever,  I  thought.  I  was  expecting  every 
minute  that  she  would  say  something  about  what  occurred 


The   Daughter  of  Snowdon's  Story     423 

under  the  elm  tree  in  the  home  close.  But  she  did  not 
allude  to  it,  and  therefore  I  did  not.  We  spent  the  entire 
afternoon  in  reminiscences  of  Carnarvonshire.  When  she 
told  me  that  she  knew  you  and  that  you  had  been  there 
tog-ether,  and  when  she  told  me  the  cause  of  your  being 
there,  and  told  me  of  your  search  for  me,  and  all  the  dis- 
tress that  came  to  you  on  my  account,  my  longing  to  see 
you  was  like  a  fever. 

"But  vivid  as  were  the  pictures  that  Sinfi  gave  me  of  your 
search  for  me,  I  could  not  piece  them  together  in  a  plain 
tale.  I  tried  to  do  so ;  it  was  impossible.  What  had  hap- 
pened to  me  after  I  had  become  unconscious  on  the  sands 
in  that  unaccountable  way — why  I  was  found  in  Wales — • 
how  I  could  possibly  have  got  there  without  knowing  about 
it — what  had  led  to  my  being  discovered  by  Mr.  D'Arcy — 
discovered  in  London,  above  all  places,  and  in  a  painter's 
studio — these  questions  were  with  me  night  and  day,  and 
Sinfi  was  entirely  unable  to  tell  me  anything  about  the 
matter,  unless,  as  I  sometimes  half-thought,  she  was  con- 
cealing something  from  me." 

"How  could  you  have  suspicions  of  poor  Sinfi?"  I  said, 
for  I  was  becoming  alarmed  at  the  way  in  which  these  in- 
quiries were  absorbing  Winnie's  mind. 

"It  is,  I  know,  Henry,  a  peculiarity  of  my  nature  to  be 
extremely  confiding  until  I  have  once  been  deceived,  and 
then  to  be  just  as  suspicious.  Kind  as  Mr.  D'Arcy  had  been 
to  me,  I  began  to  feel  restless  in  his  haven  of  refuge.  I 
think  that  he  perceived  it,  for  I  often  found  his  eyes  fixed 
upon  me  with  a  somewhat  inquiring  and  anxious  ex- 
pression in  them.  I  felt  that  I  must  leave  him  and 
go  out  into  the  world  and  take  my  place  in  the  battle  of 
life." 

"But,  Winnie,"  I  said,  "you  don't  say  that  you  intended 
to  come  to  me.  Battle  of  life,  indeed  !  Where  should  Win- 
nie stand  in  that  battle  except  by  the  side  of  Henry?  You 
knew  now  where  to  find  me.  Sinfi,  of  course,  told  you  that 
I  was  in  Wales.  And  you  did  not  even  write  to  me !  Wliat 
can  it  mean?" 

"Why,  Henry,  don't  you  know  what  it  means?  Don't 
you  know  that  the  ncwspa])ors  were  full  of  long  para- 
graphs about  the  heir  of  the  Aylwins  having  left  his  famous 
bungalow  and  gone  to  Japan?    Why,  it  was  actually  copied 


424  Aylwin 

into  the  little  penny  weekly  thing  that  Mrs.  Titwing  takes 
in,  and  it  was  there  that  I  read  it." 

"This  shows  the  folly  of  ignoring  the  papers,"  I  said.  "I 
did  undoubtedly  say  in  some  letters  to  friends  that  I  pro- 
posed going  to  Japan ;  but  my  loss  of  you,  my  grief,  my 
misery,  paralysed  every  faculty  of  mine.  My  strength  of 
purpose  was  all  gone.  I  delayed  and  delayed  starting,  and 
never  left  Wales  at  all,  as  you  see." 

"Two  things,"  continued  Winnie,  "prevented  my  leav- 
ing Hurstcote — my  promise  to  Mr.  D'Arcy  to  sit  to  him 
for  his  picture  Zenelophon,  and  the  prosaic  fact  that  I  had 
not  money  in  my  pocket  to  travel  with ;  for  it  was  part  of 
the  delicate  method  of  Mr.  D'Arcy  to  furnish  me  with 
everything  money  could  buy,  but  to  give  me  no  money. 
His  extravagent  expenditure  upon  me  in  the  way  of  dress, 
trinkets,  and  every  kind  of  luxury  that  could  be  placed  in 
my  room  by  Mrs.  Titwing  appalled  me.  Mrs.  Titwing's 
own  bearing,  when  I  spoke  to  her  about  them,  would  have 
made  one  almost  suppose  that  they  grew  there  like  mush- 
rooms ;  and  if  I  mentioned  them  to  Mr.  D'Arcy  he  would 
tell  me  that  Mrs.  Titwing  was  answerable  for  all  that;  he 
knew  nothing  about  such  matters. 

"What  I  should  in  the  end  have  done  as  to  leaving  Hurst- 
cote or  remaining  there  I  don't  know ;  but  after  a  while 
something  occurred  to  remove  my  difficulties.  One  morn- 
ing, when  I  was  giving  Mr.  D'Arcy  a  long  sitting  for  his 
picture,  a  Gypsy  friend  of  Sinfi's,  belonging  to  a  family  of 
Lees  encamped  two  or  three  miles  off,  called  to  see  her.  It 
was  a  man,  Sinfi  told  me,  whom  I  did  not  know,  and  he 
had  gone  away  without  my  seeing  him. 

"In  the  afternoon,  when  Sinfi  and  I  were  in  the  punt  fish- 
ing together,  I  could  not  help  noticing  that  she  was  much 
absorbed  in  thought. 

"  'This  'ere  fishin'  brings  back  old  Wales,  don't  it?'  she 
said. 

"  'Yes,'  I  said,  'and  I  should  love  to  see  the  old  places 
again.' 

"  'You  would  ?'  she  said  ;  and  her  excitement  was  so  great 
that  she  dropped  her  fishing-rod  in  the  river.  'Jake  Lee 
has  been  tellin'  me  that  our  people  are  there,  all  camped  in 
the  old  place  by  Bettws  y  Coed.  I  told  him  to  write  to  my 
daddv — Jake  can  write — and  tell  him  that  I'm  goin'  to  see 
him.'' 


The   Daughter  of  Snowdon's  Story     425 

"  'But  you  already  knew  they  were  there,  Sinfi;  you  told 
nie.    What  makes  you  so  suddenly  want  to  go?' 

"  'That's  nuther  here  nor  there.  I  do  w^ant  to  go.  Why 
can't  you  go  with  me?' 

"  'I  should  much  like  it,'  I  said,  'but  it's  impossible.' 

"  'Why?    You  can  come  back  to  Mr.  D'Arcy  again.' 

"  'But,  Sinfi,'  I  said,  'how  are  we  to  travel  without 
money?    I  have  not  a  copper.' 

"  'Ah,  but  I've  got  gold  balanscrs  about  me,  and  they's 
better  nor  copper.' 

"  'Dear  Sinfi !'  I  said,  'I'd  rather  borrow  of  you  than  any 
one  in  the  world.' 

"  'Borrow !'  said  she — 'all  right !  Now  we  shall  have  to 
speak  to  Mr.  D'Arcy  about  it.  It'll  be  like  drawin'  one  o' 
his  teeth  partin'  with  you.' 

"When  I  next  saw  Mr.  D'Arcy  I  found  that  Sinfi  had  al- 
ready spoken  to  him  about  our  project.  He  seemed  very 
reluctant  for  me  to  leave  him,  although  I  promised  him  that 
I  would  return. 

"  'It  is  a  strange  fancy  of  Sinfi's,  Miss  Wynne,'  said  he, 
'and  a  very  disconcerting  one  to  me ;  but  I  feel  that  it  must 
be  yielded  to.  Whatever  can  be  done  to  serve  or  even 
gratify  Sinfi  Lovell,  it  is  my  duty  and  yours  to  do.' 

"Mr.  D'Arcy  always  spoke  of  Sinfi  in  this  way.  She 
seems  to  have  done  something  of  a  peculiarly  noble  kind 
for  him  and  for  me  too,  but  what  it  is  I  have  tried  in  vain  to 
discover. 

"And  a  few  days  after  this  we  started  for  Wales. 

"Oh,  Henry,  I  wonder  whether  any  one  who  is  not 
Welsh-born  can  understand  my  delight  as  we  passed  along 
the  railway  at  nightfall  and  I  first  felt  upon  my  cheek  the 
soft  rich  breath  of  the  Welsh  meadows,  smelling  partly  of 
the  beloved  land  and  partly  of  the  beloved  sea.  'Yr  Hen 
Wlad,  yr  Hen  Gartref!'  I  murmured  when  at  Prestatyn  I 
heard  the  first  Welsh  word  and  saw  the  first  white-washed 
Welsh  cottage.  From  head  to  foot  I  became  a  Welsh  girl 
again.  The  loveliness  of  Hurstcote  Manor  seemed  a  dull, 
grey,  far-away  house  in  a  dream.  I'ut  if  I  had  known  that 
I  should  also  find  you,  my  dear !  If  I  had  dreamed  that  I 
should  find  Henry  1" 

And  then  silence  alone  would  satisfy  her.  And  Snow- 
don  was  speaking  to  us  both. 


426  Aylwin 


XIII. 

And  what  about  Sinfi  Lovell?  In  those  supreme  moments 
of  bliss  did  Winifred  and  I  think  much  about  Sinfi  ?  Alas, 
that  love  and  happiness  should  be  so  selfish ! 

When  at  last  the  sound  of  Sinfi's  crwth  and  song  came 
from  some  spot  a  good  way  up  the  rugged  path  leading  to 
the  summit,  it  quite  startled  us. 

"That's  Sinfi's  signal,"  said  Winnie;  "that  is  the  way  we 
used  to  call  each  other  when  we  were  children.  She  used 
to  sing  one  verse  of  a  Snowdon  song,  and  I  used  to  answer 
it  with  another.  Upon  my  word,  Henry,  I  had  forgotten  all 
about  her.  What  a  shame!  We  have  not  seen  each  other 
since  we  parted  yesterday  at  the  camp." 

And  she  sprang  up  to  go. 

"No,  don't  leave  me,"  I  said ;  "wait  till  she  comes  to  us. 
She's  sure  to  come  quite  soon  enough.  Depend  upon  it  she 
is  eager  to  see  how  her  coup  de  theatre  has  prospered." 

"I  must  really  go  to  her,"  said  Winifred ;  "ever  since  we 
left  Hurstcote  I  have  fallen  in  with  her  wishes  in  everv- 
thing." 

"But  why?" 

"Because  I  am  sure  from  Mr.  D'Arcy's  words  that  she 
has  rendered  me  some  great  service,  though  what  it  is  I 
can't  guess  in  the  least." 

"But  W'hat  are  really  the  plans  of  the  day  of  this  impor- 
tant Gypsy?" 

"There  again  I  can't  guess  in  the  least,"  said  Winifred. 
"Probably  the  walk  to  the  top  and  then  down  to  Llanberis, 
and  then  on  to  Carnarvon,  is  really  to  take  place,  as  origi- 
nally arranged — only  with  the  slight  addition  that  some  one 
is  to  join  us.  I  shall  soon  be  back,  either  alone  or  with 
Sinfi,  and  then  we  shall  know." 

She  ran  up  the  path.  Against  her  wish  I  followed  her  for 
a  time.  She  moved  towards  the  same  dangerous  ledge  of 
rock  where  I  had  last  seen  her  on  that  day  before  she 
vanished  in  the  mist. 

I  cried  out  as  I  followed  her,  "Winnie,  for  God's  sake 
don't  run  that  danger!" 


The   Daughter  of  Snovvdon's  Story     427 

"No  danger  at  all,"'  she  cried.  "I  know  every  rock  as 
well  as  yon  know  every  boulder  of  Raxton  Cliffs." 

I  watched  her  poising  herself  on  the  ledge;  it  made  me 
dizzy.  Her  confidence,  however,  was  so  great  that  I  began 
to  feel  she  was  safe ;  and  after  she  had  passed  out  of  sight 
I  returned  to  the  llyn  where  we  had  breakfasted. 

Sinfi's  music  ceased,  but  Winifred  did  not  return.  I  sat 
down  on  the  rock  and  tried  to  think,  but  soon  found  that 
the  feat  was  impossible.  The  turbulent  waves  of  my  emo- 
tion seemed  to  have  washed  my  brain  clear  of  all  thoughts. 
The  mystery  in  connection  with  Sinfi  was  now  as  great  as 
the  mystery  connected  with  the  rescue  of  Winifred  from 
the  mattress  in  Primrose  Court.  So  numbed  was  my  brain 
that  I  at  last  pinched  myself  to  make  sure  that  I  was  awake. 
In  doing  this  I  seemed  to  feel  in  one  of  my  coat  pockets  a 
hard  substance.  Putting  my  hand  into  the  pocket,  I  felt 
the  sharp  corner  of  a  letter  pricking  between  a  finger  and 
its  nail.  The  acute  pain  assured  me  that  I  was  awake.  I 
pulled  out  the  letter.  It  was  the  one  that  the  servant  at 
the  bungalow  had  given  me  in  the  early  morning  when  I 
called  to  get  my  bath.  I  read  the  address,  which  was  in  a 
handwriting  I  did  not  know : — 

"Henry  Aylwin,  Esq., 

"Carnarvon,  North  Wales." 

The  Carnarvon  postmark  and  the  words  written  on  tlie 
envelope,  "Try  Capel  Curig,"  showed  the  cause  of  the  de- 
lay in  the  letter's  reaching  me.  In  the  left-hand  corner  of 
the  envelope  were  written  the  words  "Very  urgent.  Please 
forward  immediately."  I  opened  it,  and  found  it  to  be  a 
letter  of  great  length.  I  looked  at  the  end  and  gave  a  start, 
exclaiming,  "D'Arcy!" 


XVI. 

D'Arcy's  Letter 


XVI.— D'ARCY'S    LETTER 

Tpiis  is  how  the  letter  ran : — 

HuRSTCOTE  Manor. 

My  dear  Aylwin, 

I  have  just  learned  by  accident  that  you  are  some- 
where in  Wales.  I  had  gathered  from  paragraphs  in  the 
newspapers  about  you  that  you  were  in  Japan,  or  in  some 
other  part  of  the  East. 

Miss  Wynne  and  Sinfi  Lovell  are  at  this  moment  in 
Wales,  and  I  write  at  once  to  furnish  you  with  some  facts 
in  connection  with  Miss  Wynne  which  it  is  important  for 
you  to  know  before  you  meet  her.  I  can  imagine  your 
amazement  at  learning  that  she  you  have  lost  so  long  has 
been  staying  here  as  my  guest.  I  will  tell  you  all  without 
more  preamble. 

One  day,  some  little  time  after  I  parted  from  you  in  the 
streets  of  London,  I  chanced  to  go  into  Wilderspin's  studio, 
when  I  found  him  in  great  distress.  He  told  me  that  the 
beautiful  model  who  had  sat  for  his  picture  "Faith  and 
Love"  had  suddenly  died.  The  mother  of  the  girl  had  on 
the  previous  day  been  in  and  told  him  that  her  daughter 
had  died  in  one  of  the  fits  to  which  at  intervals  she  had 
been  subject. 

Wilderspin,  in  his  eccentric  way,  had  always  declared 
that  the  model  was  not  the  woman's  daughter.  He  did  not 
think  her,  as  I  did,  to  have  been  kidnapped;  he  believed 
her  to  be  not  a  creature  of  flesh  and  blood  at  all,  but  a 
spiritual  body  sent  from  heaven  by  his  mother  in  order 
that  he  might  use  her  to  paint  as  a  model.  As  to  the  woman 
Gudgeon,  who  laid  claim  to  be  her  mother,  he  thought  she 
was  suffering  from  a  delusion — a  beneficent  delusion — in 
supposing  the  model  to  be  her  daughter.  And  now  he 
thought  that  this  beautiful  phantom  from  the  spirit  world 
had  been  recalled  because  his  picture  was  complete.  When 


432  Aylwin 

I  entered  the  studio  he  was  just  starting  for  the  second 
time,  as  he  told  me,  to  the  woman's  house,  in  the  belief  that 
the  body  of  the  girl  which  he  had  seen  lying  on  a  mattress 
was  a  delusion — a  spiritual  body,  and  must  by  this  time 
have  vanished. 

I  had  reasons  for  wishing  to  prevent  his  going  there  and 
being  again  brought  into  contact  with  the  woman  before 
I  saw  her  myself.  From  my  first  seeing  the  woman  and 
the  model,  I  had  found  it  impossible  to  believe  that  there 
could  be  any  blood  relationship  between  them,  for  the 
girl's  frame  from  head  to  foot  was  as  delicate  as  the  wom- 
an's frame  from  head  to  foot  was  coarse  and  vulgar. 

Naturally,  therefore,  it  occurred  to  me  that  this  was  an 
excellent  opportunity  to  find  out  the  truth  of  the  matter. 
I  determined  to  go  and  bully  the  impudent  hag  into  a  con- 
fession ;  but  of  course  Wilderspin  was  the  last  man  I  should 
choose  to  accompany  me  on  such  a  mission.  Your  rela- 
tive, Cyril  Aylwin,  was,  as  I  believed,  on  the  Continent,  ex- 
pecting Wilderspin  to  join  him  there,  or  I  might  have  taken 
him  with  me. 

I  have  always  had  great  influence  over  Wilderspin,  and 
I  easily  persuaded  him  to  remain  in  the  studio  while  I  went 
myself  to  the  woman's  address,  which  he  gave  me.  I  knew 
that  if  the  model  v/ere  really  dead  she  would  have  to  be 
buried  by  the  parish  at  a  pauper  funeral,  that  is  to  say,  low- 
ered into  a  deep  pit  with  other  paupers.  It  was  painful  to 
me  to  think  of  this,  and  I  determined  to  get  her  buried 
myself.  So  I  took  a  hansom  and  drove  to  the  squalid  court 
in  the  neighbourhood  of  Holborn,  where  the  woman  lived. 

On  reaching  the  house,  I  found  the  door  open.  Wilder- 
spin  had  described  to  me  the  room  occupied  by  Mrs.  Gud- 
geon, so  I  went  at  once  upstairs.  I  found  the  model  upon 
a  mattress,  her  features  horribly  contorted,  lying  in  the 
same  clothes  apparently  in  which  she  had  fallen  when 
seized. 

In  an  armchair  in  the  middle  of  the  room  was  Mrs.  Gud- 
geon, in  a  drunken  sleep  so  profound  that  I  could  not  have 
roused  her  had  I  tried.  While  I  stood  looking  at  the  girl, 
something  in  the  appearance  of  her  flesh — its  freshness  of 
hue — made  mc  suspect  that  she  was  still  alive,  and  that  she 
was  only  suffering  from  a  seizure  of  a  more  acute  kind 
than  any  the  woman  had  yet  seen.  As  I  stood  looking  at 
these  two  it  occurred  to  me  that  should  the  model  recover 


D'Arcy's    Letter  433 

from  the  seizure  this  would  be  an  excellent  and  quite  un- 
expected opportunity  for  me  to  get  her  away.  The  woman, 
I  thought,  would  after  a  while  wake  up,  and  find  to  her 
amazement  the  body  gone  of  her  whom  she  thought  dead. 
If  she  had  really  kidnapped  the  girl  she  would  be  afraid  to 
set  any  inquiry  afoot.  She  might  even  perhaps  imagine 
that  the  girl's  relations  had  traced  her,  found  the  dead  body, 
and  removed  it  for  burial  while  she,  the  kidnapper,  was 
asleep. 

After  a  while  the  expression  of  terror  on  the  model's  face 
began  to  relax,  and  she  soon  awoke  into  that  strange  con- 
dition which  had  caused  Wilderspin  to  declare  that  she  had 
been  sent  from  another  world.  She  recognised  me  in  the 
semi-conscious  way  in  which  she  recognised  all  those  who 
were  brought  into  contact  with  her,  and  looked  into  my 
face  with  that  indescribably  sweet  smile  of  hers.  From  the 
first  she  had  in  her  dazed  way  seemed  attached  to  me,  and 
I  had  now  no  difficulty  whatever  in  persuading  her  to  ac- 
company me  downstairs  and  out  of  the  house. 

Before  going,  however,  the  whim  seized  me  to  write  on 
the  wall  in  large  letters,  with  a  piece  of  red  drawing-chalk 
I  had  in  my  waistcoat  pocket,  "Kidnapper,  beware!  Jack 
Ketch  is  on  your  track."  I  took  the  girl  to  my  house,  and 
put  her  under  the  care  of  my  housekeeper  (much  to  the 
VvOrthy  lady's  surprise),  who  gave  her  every  attention.  I 
then  went  to  Wilderspin's  studio. 

"Well,"  said  he,  "there  is  no  body  lying  there,  I  sup- 
pose?" 

"None,"  I  said. 

"Did  I  not  tell  you  that  the  spirit  world  had  called  her 
back?  What  I  saw  has  vanished,  as  I  expected.  How 
could  vou  suppose  that  a  material  body  could  ever  be  so 
beautiful  ?" 

As  I  particularly  wished  that  the  model  should,  for  a 
time  at  least,  be  removed  from  all  her  present  surround- 
ings, I  thought  it  well  to  let  Wilderspin  retain  his  wild 
theory  as  to  her  disappearance. 

I  had  already  arranged  to  go  on  the  following  day  to 
Hurstcote  Manor,  where  several  unfinished  pictures  were 
waiting  for  me,  and  I  decided  to  take  the  model  with  me. 

Before,  however,  I  started  for  the  country  with  her,  I 
had  the  curiosity  to  call  next  morning  upon  the  woman 
in  Primrose  Coiut,  in  order  to  discover  what  had  been  the 


434  Aylwin 

effect  of  my  stratagem.  I  found  her  sitting  in  a  state  of 
excitement,  and  evidently  in  great  alarm,  gazing  at  the 
mattress.  The  words  I  had  written  on  the  wall  had  been 
carefully  washed  out. 

"Well,  Mrs.  Gudgeon,"  I  said,  "what  has  become  of 
your  daughter?" 

"Dead,"  she  whimpered,  "dead." 

"Yes,  I  know  she's  dead,"  I  said.  "But  where  is  the 
body?" 

"Where's  the  body?  Why,  buried,  in  course,"  said  the 
woman. 

"Buried?    Who  buried  her?"  I  said. 

"What  a  question,  surelie !"  she  said,  and  kept  repeating 
the  words  in  order,  as  I  saw,  to  give  herself  time  to  invent 
some  story.  Then  a  look  of  cunning  overspread  her  face, 
and  she  whimpered,  "Who  does  bury  folks  in  Primrose 
Court?    The  parish,  to  be  sure." 

These  words  of  the  woman's  showed  that  matters  had 
taken  exactly  the  course  I  should  have  liked  them  to  take. 
She  would  tell  other  inquirers  as  she  had  told  me,  that  her 
daughter  had  been  buried  by  the  parish.  No  one  would 
take  the  trouble,  I  thought,  to  inquire  into  it,  and  the  mat- 
ter would  end  at  once. 

So  I  said  to  her,  "Oh,  if  the  parish  buried  her,  that's  all 
right;  no  one  ever  makes  inquiries  about  people  who 
are  buried  by  the  parish." 

This  seemed  to  relieve  the  woman's  mind  vastly,  and  she 
said,  "In  course  they  don't.  What's  the  use  of  askin' 
questions  about  people  as  are  buried  by  the  parish  ?" 

Not  thinking  that  the  time  was  quite  ripe  for  cross- 
examining  Mrs.  Gudgeon  as  to  her  real  relations  to  the 
model,  I  left  her,  and  that  same  afternoon  I  took  the  model 
down  to  Hurstcote  Manor,  determining  to  keep  the  matter 
a  secret  from  everybody,  as  I  intended  to  discover,  if  possi- 
ble, her  identity. 

I  need  scarcely  remind  you  that  although  you  told  me 
some  little  of  the  story  of  yourself  and  a  young  lady  to 
whom  you  were  deeply  attached,  you  were  very  reticent  as 
to  the  cause  of  her  dementia ;  and  your  story  ended  with 
her  disappearance  in  Wales.  I,  for  my  part,  had  not  the 
smallest  doubt  that  she  had  fallen  down  a  precipice  and  was 
dead.  Everything — especially  the  fact  that  you  la.st  saw 
her  on  the  brink  of  a  precipice,  running  into  a  volume  of 


D'Arcy's    Letter  435 

mist — pointed  to  but  one  conclusion.  To  have  imagined 
for  a  moment  that  she  and  Wilderspin's  model,  who  had 
been  discovered  in  the  streets  of  London,  were  the  same, 
would  have  been,  of  course,  impossible.  Besides,  you  had 
given  me  no  description  of  her  personal  appearance,  nor 
had  you  said  a  word  to  me  as  to  her  style  of  beauty,  which 
is  undoubtedly  unique. 

When  I  got  the  model  fairly  settled  at  Hurstcote  her 
presence  became  a  delight  to  me,  such  as  it  could  hardly 
have  been  to  any  other  man.  It  is  difficult  for  me  to 
describe  that  dehght,  but  I  will  try. 

Do  you  by  chance  remember  our  talk  about  animals  and 
the  charm  they  had  for  me,  especially  young  animals?  And 
do  you  remember  my  saying  that  the  most  fascinating 
creature  in  the  world  would  be  a  beautiful  young  girl  as 
imconscious  as  a  child  or  a  young  animal,  if  such  a  com- 
bination of  charms  were  possible?  Such  a  young  girl  as 
this  it  was  whom  I  was  now  seeing  every  day  and  all  day. 
The  charm  she  exercised  over  me  was  no  doubt  partly 
owing  to  my  own  peculiar  temperament — to  my  own  hatred 
of  self-consciousness  and  to  an  innate  shyness  which  is 
apt  to  make  me  feel  at  times  that  people  are  watching  me, 
when  they  most  likely  are  doing  nothing  of  the  kind. 

And  charming  as  she  is  now,  restored  to  health  and 
consciousness — charming  above  most  young  ladies  with 
her  sweet  intelligence  and  most  lovable  nature — the  inex- 
pressible witchery  I  have  tried  to  describe  has  vanished, 
otherwise  I  don't  know  how  I  should  have  borne  what  I 
now  have  brought  myself  to  bear,  parting  from  her. 

I  seemed  to  have  no  time  to  think  about  prosecuting 
inquiries  in  regard  to  her  identity.  I  am  afraid  there  was 
much  selfishness  in  this,  but  I  have  never  pretended  to  be 
an  unselfish  man. 

The  one  drop  of  bitterness  in  my  cup  of  pleasure  was  the 
recurrence  of  the  terrible  paroxysms  to  which  she  was 
subject. 

I  was  alarmed  to  find  that  these  became  more  and  more 
frequent  and  more  and  more  severe.  I  felt  at  last  that 
her  system  could  not  stand  the  strain  much  longer,  and 
that  the  end  of  her  life  was  not  far  distant. 

Tt  was  in  a  very  singular  way  that  I  came  to  know  her 
name  and  also  her  relations  Vvlth  you.  In  my  original 
perplexity  about  finding  a  model  for  my  Zenelophon,  I  had 


43^  Aylwin 

bethought  me  of  Sinfi  Lovell,  who,  with  a  friend  of  hers 
named  Rhona  Boswell,  sat  to  Wilderspin,  to  your  cousin, 
and  others.  I  had  made  inquiries  about  Sinfi,  but  had  been 
told  that  she  was  not  now  to  be  had,  as  she  had  abandoned 
London  altogether,  and  was  settled  in  Wales. 

One  day,  however,  I  was  startled  by  seeing  Sinfi  walking 
across  the  meadows  along  the  footpath  leading  from  the 
station. 

She  told  me  that  she  had  quitted  Wales  for  good,  and 
had  left  you  there,  and  that  on  reaching  London  and  call- 
ing at  one  of  the  studios  where  she  used  to  sit,  she  had 
been  made  aware  of  my  inquiries  after  her.  As  she  had 
now  determined  to  sit  a  good  deal  for  painters,  she  had 
gone  to  my  studio  in  London.  Being  told  there  that  I  was 
at  Hurstcote  Manor,  where  she  had  sat  to  me  on  several 
occasions,  she  had  taken  the  train  and  come  down. 

During  our  conversation  the  model  passed  through  the 
garden  gate  and  walked  towards  the  Spinney,  and  stood 
looking  in  a  rapt  way  at  the  sunset  clouds  and  listening 
to  the  birds. 

When  Sinfi  caught  sight  of  her  she  stood  as  if  petrified, 
and  exclaimed,  "Winnie  Wynne !  Then  she  ain't  dead ; 
the  dukkeripen  was  true ;  they'll  be  married  arter  all.  Don't 
let  her  see  me  suddenly,  it  might  bring  on  fits." 

Miss  Wynne,  however,  had  observed  neither  Sinfi  nor 
me,  and  we  two  passed  into  the  garden  without  any 
difficulty. 

In  the  studio  Sinfi  sat  down  and  in  a  state  of  the  deepest 
agitation,  she  told  me  much  of  the  story,  as  far  as  she 
knew  it,  of  yourself  and  Miss  Wynne,  but  I  could  see  that 
she  was  not  telling  me  all. 

We  were  both  perplexed  as  to  what  would  be  the  best 
course  of  action  to  take  in  regard  to  Miss  Wynne — whether 
to  let  her  see  Sinfi  or  not,  for  evidently  she  was  getting 
worse,  the  paroxysms  were  getting  more  frequent  and 
more  severe.  They  would  come  without  any  apparent  dis- 
turbing cause  whatever.  Now  that  I  had  to  connect  her 
you  had  lost  in  Wales  with  the  model,  many  things  re- 
turned to  me  which  I  had  previously  forgotten,  things 
which  you  had  told  me  in  London.  I  had  quite  lately 
learnt  a  good  deal  from  Dr.  Mivart,  who  formerly  practised 
near  the  town  in  which  you  lived,  but  who  now  lives  in 
London.    He  had  been  attending  me  for  insomnia.  While 


D'Arcy's    Letter  437 

speculating  as  to  what  would  be  best  to  do,  it  occurred  to 
me  that  I  would  write  to  Mivart,  asking  him  to  run  down 
to  me  at  Hurstcote  Manor  and  consult  with  me,  because 
he  had  told  me  that  he  had  given  attention  to  cases  of 
hysteria.  I  did  this,  and  persuaded  Sinfi  to  remain  and  to 
keep  out  of  Miss  Wynne's  sight.  Althought  Sinfi  was  still 
as  splendid  a  woman  as  ever,  I  noticed  a  change  in  her. 
Her  animal  spirits  had  fled,  and  she  had  to  me  the  appear- 
ance of  a  woman  in  trouble;  but  what  her  trouble  was  I 
could  not  guess,  and  I  cannot  now  guess.  Perhaps  she 
had  been  jilted  by  some  Gypsy  swain. 

When  Dr.  Mivart  came  he  was  much  startled  at  recog- 
nising in  Miss  Wynne  his  former  patient  of  Raxton,  whom 
he  had  attended  on  her  first  seizure.  He  said  that  it  would 
now  be  of  no  use  for  me  to  write  to  you,  as  it  was  matter 
of  common  knowledge  that  you  had  gone  to  Japan,  If 
it  had  not  been  for  this  I  should  have  written  to  you  at 
once.  He  took  a  very  grave  view  of  Miss  Wynne's  case, 
and  said  that  her  nervous  system  must  shortly  succumb  to 
the  terrible  seizures.  Sinfi  Lovell  was  in  the  room  at  the 
time.  I  asked  Dr.  Mivart  if  there  was  any  possible  means 
of  saving  her  life. 

"None,"  he  said,  "or  rather  there  is  one  which  is  un- 
available." 

"And  what  is  that?"  I  asked. 

"They  have  a  way  at  the  Salpetriere  Hospital  of  curing 
cases  of  acute  hysteria  by  transmitting  the  seizure  to  a 
healthy  patient  by  means  of  a  powerful  magnet.  My  friend 
Marini,  of  that  hospital,  has  had  recently  some  extraor- 
dinary successes  of  this  kind.  Indeed,  by  a  strange  coin- 
cidence, as  I  was  travelling  here  this  morning  I  chanced 
to  buy  a  Daily  Telegraph  in  which  this  paragraph  struck 
my  eye." 

Mivart  then  pointed  out  to  me  a  letter  from  Paris  in  the 
Daily  Telegraph,  giving  an  account  of  certain  proceedings 
at  the  Salpetriere  Hospital,  and  in  the  same  paper  there 
was  a  long  leading  article  upon  the  subject.  The  report 
of  the  experiments  was  to  me  so  amazing  that  at  first  I 
could  not  bring  my  mind  to  believe  in  it.  As  you  will,  I  am 
sure,  feel  some  incredulity,  I  have  cut  out  the  paragraph, 
and  here  it  is  pasted  at  the  bottom  of  this  page : — 

"The  chief  French  surgeons  and  medical  professors  have,  for 
some  time,  been  carefnlly  studying  the  effect  of  mesmerism  on  the 


43^  Aylwin 


female  patients  of  the  Salpetriere  Hospital,  and  M.  Marini,  a  clini- 
cal surgeon  of  that  establishment,  has  just  effected  a  series  of  ex- 
periments, the  results  of  which  would  seem  to  open  up  a  new  field 
for  medical  science.  M.  Marini  tried  to  prove  that  certain  hysteri- 
cal symptoms  could  be  transferred  by  the  aid  of  the  magnet  from 
one  patient  to  another.  He  took  two  subjects:  one  a  dumb  woman 
afifiicted  with  hysteria,  and  the  other  a  female  who  was  in  a  state 
of  hypnotic  trance.  A  screen  was  placed  between  the  two,  and  the 
hysterical  woman  was  then  put  under  the  influence  of  a  strong 
magnet.  After  a  few  moments  she  was  rendered  dumb,  while  speech 
was  suddenly  restored  to  the  other.  Luckily  for  his  healthier  patients, 
however,  their  borrowed  pains  and  symptoms  did  not  last  long." 

And  Mivart  was  able  to  give  me  some  more  extraordi- 
nary instances  of  the  transmission  of  hysterical  seizures 
from  one  patient  to  another,  instances  where  permanent 
cures  were  effected.*  Naturally  I  asked  Mivart  what  be- 
fell the  new  victims  of  the  seizures. 

"That  depends,"  said  Mivart,  "upon  three  circumstances 
— the  acuteness  of  the  seizure,  the  strength  of  the  recip- 
ient's nervous  system,  and  the  kind  of  imagination  she  has. 
In  all  Marini's  experiments  the  new  patient  has  quickly  re- 
covered, and  the  original  patient  has  remained  entirely 
cured  and  often  entirely  unconscious  that  she  has  ever 
suffered  from  the  paroxysms  at  all." 

Mivart  went  on  to  say  that  the  case  of  Miss  Wynne  was 
so  severe  a  one  that  if  the  new  patient's  imagination  were 
very  strong  the  risk  to  her  would  be  exceptionally  great. 

At  the  end  of  this  discussion  Mivart  directed  my  atten- 
tion to  Sinfi  Lovell.  She  sat  as  though  listening  to  some 
voice.  Her  head  was  bent  forward,  her  lips  were  parted, 
and  her  eyes  were  closed.  Then  I  heard  her  say  in  a  loud 
whisper,  "Yis,  mammy  dear,  little  Sinfi's  a-listenin'.  Yis, 
this  is  the  way  to  make  her  dukkeripen  come  true,  and  then 
mine  can't.  Yis,  this  is  the  very  way.  They  shall  meet 
again  by  Knockers'  Llyn,  where  I  seed  the  Golden  Hand, 
and  arter  that,  never  shall  little  Sinfi  go  ag'in  you,  dear. 
And  never  no  more  shall  any  one  on  'em,  Gorgio  or 
Gorgie,  bring  their  gries  and  their  beautiful  livin'-waggins 
among  tents  o'  ourn.  Never  no  more  shall  they  jine  our 
breed — never  no  more,  never  no  more.  And  then  my 
dukkeripen  can't  come  true." 

Then,  springing  up,  she  said,  "I'll  stand  the  risk  anyhow. 
You  may  pass  the  cuss  on  to  me  if  you  can." 

*The  transmissions  here  alluded  to  were  mostly  effected  by  M. 
Babinski,  of  the  Salpetriere.    They  excited  great  attention  in  Paris. 


D'Arcy's    Letter  439 

"The  seizure  has  nothing  to  do  with  any  curse,"  said 
Mivart,  "but  if  you  think  it  has,  you  are  the  last  person 
to  whom  it  should  be  transmitted." 

"Oh,  never  fear,"  said  Sinfi;  "Gorgio  cuss  can't  touch 
Romany.  But  if  you  find  you  can  pass  the  cuss  on  to  me, 
ril  stand  the  cuss  all  the  same." 

I  always  admired  this  noble  girl  very  much,  and  I  pointed 
out  to  her  the  danger  of  the  experiment  to  one  of  her 
temperament,  but  assured  her  the  superstition  about  the 
Gorgio  curse  was  entirely  an  idle  one. 

"Danger  or  no  danger,"  she  said,  "I'll  chance  it;  I'll 
chance  it." 

"It  might  be  the  death  of  you,"  I  said,  "if  you  believe 
that  the  seizure  is  a  curse." 

"Death !"  she  murmured,  with  a  smile.  "It  ain't  death 
as  is  likely  to  scare  a  Romany  chi,  especially  if  she  hap- 
pens to  want  to  die."  And  then  she  said  aloud,  "I  tell  you 
I  mean  to  chance  it,  but  I  think  my  dear  old  daddy  ought 
to  know  about  it.  So  if  you'll  jist  write  to  him  at  Gypsy 
Dell  by  Rington,  and  ask  him  to  come  and  see  me  here, 
I'm  right  well  sure  he'll  come  and  see  me  at  wonst.  He 
can't  read  the  letter  hisself,  of  course,  but  the  Scollard 
can,  and  so  can  Rhona  Boswell.  One  on  'em  will  read  it  to 
him,  and  I  know  he'll  come  at  wonst.  I  shouldn't  like  to 
run  such  a  risk  without  my  dear  blessed  old  daddy  knowin' 
on  it." 

It  ended  in  Mivart's  writing  to  Sinfi's  father,  and  Panuel 
Lovell  turned  up  the  next  evening  in  a  great  state  of  alarm 
as  to  what  he  was  wanted  for.  Panuel's  opposition  to  the 
scheme  was  so  strong  that  I  refused  to  urge  the  point. 

It  was  a  very  touching  scene  between  him  and  Sinfi. 

"You  know  what  your  mammy  told  you  about  you  and 
the  Gorgios,"  said  he,  with  tears  trickling  down  his  cheeks. 
"You  know  the  dukkeripen  said  as  you  wur  to  beware  o' 
Gorgios,  because  a  Gorgio  would  come  to  the  Kaulo 
Camloes  as  would  break  your  heart." 

She  looked  at  her  father  for  a  second,  and  then  she  broke 
into  a  passion  of  tears,  and  threw  herself  upon  the  old 
man's  neck,  and  I  thought  I  heard  her  murmur,  "It's  broke 
a'rcady,  daddy."  But  I  really  am  not  quite  sure  that  she 
(lid  not  say  the  opposite  of  this. 

I  had  no  idea  before  how  strong  the  family  ties  are  be- 
tween the  Gypsies.    It  seems  to  me  that  they  are  stronger 


440  Aylwin 

than  with  us,  and  I  was  really  astonished  that  Sinfi  could, 
in  order  to  be  of  service  to  two  people  of  another  race, 
resist  the  old  Gypsy's  appeal.  She  did,  however,  and  it 
was  decided  that  at  the  next  seizure  the  experiment  should 
be  made,  and  Dr.  Mivart  telegraphed  to  London  for  his 
assistant  to  bring  one  of  Marini's  magnets. 

We  had  not  long  to  wait,  for  the  very  next  day,  just  as 
Mivart  was  preparing  to  leave  for  London,  Miss  Wynne 
was  seized  by  another  paroxysm.  It  was  more  severe  than 
any  previous  one — so  severe,  indeed,  that  it  seemed  to  me 
that  it  must  be  the  last. 

It  was  with  great  reluctance  that  Mivart  consented  to 
use  Sinfi  as  the  recipient  of  the  seizure,  because  of  her 
belief  that  it  was  the  result  of  a  curse.  However,  he  at 
last  consented,  and  ordered  two  couches  to  be  placed  side 
by  side  with  a  large  magnet  between  them.  Then  Miss 
Wynne  was  laid  on  one  couch,  and  Sinfi  Lovell  on  the 
other;  a  screen  was  placed  between  the  couches,  and  then 
the  wonderful  effect  of  the  magnetism  began  to  show  itself. 

The  transmission  was  entirely  successful,  and  Miss 
Wynne  awoke  as  from  a  trance,  and  I  saw  as  it  were  the 
beautiful  eyes  change  as  the  soul  returned  to  them.  She 
was  no  longer  the  fascinating  child  who  had  become  part 
of  my  life.  She  was  another  person,  a  stranger  whose 
acquaintance  I  had  now  to  make,  and  whose  friendship  I 
had  yet  to  win.  Indeed  the  change  in  the  expression  was 
so  great  that  it  was  really  difficult  to  believe  that  the 
features  were  the  same.  This  was  owing  to  the  wonder- 
ful change  in  the  eyes. 

To  Sinfi  Lovell  the  seizure  was  transmitted  in  a  way 
that  was  positively  uncanny — she  passed  into  a  paroxysm 
so  severe  that  Mivart  was  seriously  alarmed  for  her.  Her 
face  assumed  the  same  expression  of  terror  which  I  had 
seen  on  Miss  Wynne's  face,  and  she  uttered  the  cry,  "Fa- 
ther!" and  then  fell  back  into  a  state  of  rigidity. 

"The  transmission  was  just  in  time,"  said  Mivart;  "the 
other  patient  would  never  have  survived  this." 

Strong  as  Sinfi  Lovell  was,  the  effect  of  the  transmission 
upon  her  nervous  system  was  to  me  appalling.  Indeed  it 
was  much  greater.  Alivart  said,  than  he  was  prepared  for. 
Poor  Panuel  Lovell  kept  gazing  at  us.  and  then  said,  "It's 
cruel  to  let  one  woman  kill  herself  for  another ;  but  when 
her  as  kills  herself  is  a  Romany,  and   t'other  a   Gorgie, 


D'Arcy's    Letter  441 

it's  what  I  calls  a  blazin'  shame.  She  would  do  it,  my  poor 
chavi  would  do  it.  'No  harm  can't  come  on  it,'  says  she, 
'because  a  Gorgio  cuss  can't  touch  a  Romany.'  An'  now 
see  what's  come  on  it." 

Mivart  would  not  hear  of  Sinfi's  returning  at  present  to 
the  Gypsies,  as  she  required  special  treatment.  Hence 
there  was  no  course  left  open  to  us  but  that  of  keeping 
her  here  attended  by  a  nurse  whom  Mivart  sent.  While 
the  recurrent  paroxysms  were  severe,  Sinfi  was  to  be  care- 
fully kept  apart  from  Miss  Wynne  until  it  should  become 
quite  clear  how  much  and  how  little  Miss  Wynne  remem- 
bered of  her  past  life.  Mivart,  however,  leaned  to  the 
opinion  that  nothing  could  recall  to  her  mind  the  catas- 
trophe that  caused  the  seizure.  By  an  unforeseen  accident 
they  met,  and  I  was  at  first  fearful  of  the  consequences, 
but  soon  found  that  Mivart's  theory  was  right.  No  ill 
effects  whatever  followed  the  meeting.  Sinfi's  transmitted 
paroxysms  have  gradually  become  less  acute  and  less  fre- 
quent, and  Miss  Wynne  has  been  constantly  with  her  and 
ministering  to  her;  the  affection  between  them  seems  to 
have  been  of  long  standing,  and  very  great. 

I  found  that  Miss  Wynne  remembered  all  her  past  life 
down  to  her  first  seizure  on  Raxton  Sands,  while  every- 
thing that  had  since  passed  was  a  blank.  Since  her  recov- 
ery her  presence  here  has  seemed  to  shed  a  richer  sunlight 
over  the  old  place,  but  of  course  she  is  no  longer  the  fairy 
child  who  before  her  cure  fascinated  me  more  than  any 
other  living  creature  could  have  done. 

Apart  from  her  sweet  companionship,  she  has  been  of 
great  service  to  me  in  my  art.  When  I  learnt  who  she  w^as, 
I  should  not  have  dreamed  of  asking  her  to  sit  to  me  as  a 
model  without  having  first  taken  your  views,  and  you  were, 
as  I  understood,  abroad ;  but  she  herself  generously  volun- 
teered to  sit  to  me  for  a  picture  I  had  in  my  mind,  "The 
Spirit  of  Snowdon."  It  was  a  failure,  however,  and  I 
abandoned  it.  Afterwards,  knowing  that  I  was  at  my  wits' 
end  for  a  model  in  the  painting  I  have  been  for  a  long  time 
at  work  upon,  "Zenelophon,"  she  again  offered  to  sit  to 
me.  The  result  has  been  that  the  picture,  now  near  com- 
pletion, is  by  far  the  best  thing  I  have  ever  done. 

I  had  noticed  for  some  time  that  Sinfi's  mind  seemed  to 
be  running  upon  some  project.  Neither  Miss  Wynne  nor 
I  could  guess  what  it  was.     But  a  few  days  ago  she  pro- 


442  Aylwin 

posed  that  Miss  Wynne  and  she  should  take  a  trip  to  North 
Wales  in  order  to  revisit  the  places  endeared  to  them  both 
by  reminiscences  of  their  childhood.  Nothing  seemed 
more  natural  than  this.  And  Sinfi's  noble  self-sacrifice 
for  Miss  Wynne  had  entitled  her  to  every  consideration, 
and  indeed  every  indulgence. 

And  yesterday  they  started  for  Wales.  It  was  not  till 
after  they  were  gone  that  I  learnt  from  another  newspaper 
paragraph  that  you  did  not  go  to  Japan,  and  are  in  Wales. 
And  now  I  begin  to  suspect  that  Sinfi's  determination  to 
go  to  Wales  with  Miss  Wynne  arose  from  her  having 
suddenly  learnt  that  you  are  still  there. 

And  now,  my  dear  Aylwin,  having  acted  as  a  somewhat 
prosaic  reporter  of  these  wonderful  events,  I  should  like  to 
conclude  my  letter  with  a  word  or  two  about  what  took 
place  when  I  parted  from  you  in  the  streets  of  London. 
I  saw  then  that  your  sufiferings  had  been  very  great,  and 
since  that  time  they  must  have  been  tenfold  greater.  And 
now  I  rejoice  to  think  that,  of  all  the  men  in  this  world  who 
have  ever  loved,  you,  through  this  very  sufifering,  have 
been  the  most  fortunate.  As  Job's  faith  was  tried  by 
Heaven,  so  has  your  love  been  tried  by  the  power  which 
you  call  "circumstance"  and  which  Wilderspin  calls  "the 
spiritual  world."  All  that  death  has  to  teach  the  mind 
and  the  heart  of  man  you  have  learnt  to  the  very  full, 
and  yet  she  3'ou  love  is  restored  to  you,  and  will  soon 
be  in  your  arms.  I,  alas !  have  long  known  that  the  tragedy 
of  tragedies  is  the  death  of  a  beloved  mistress,  or  a  be- 
loved wife.  I  have  long  known  that  it  is  as  the  King 
of  Terrors  that  Death  must  needs  come  to  any  man  who 
knows  what  the  word  "love"  really  means.  I  have  never 
been  a  reader  of  philosophy,  but  I  understand  that  the 
philosophers  of  all  countries  have  been  preaching  for  ages 
upon  ages  about  resignation  to  Death — about  the  final 
beneficence  of  Death — that  "reasonable  moderator  and 
equipoise  of  justice,"  as  Sir  Thomas  Browne  calls  him. 
Equipoise  of  justice  indeed !  He  who  can  read  with  toler- 
ance such  words  as  these  must  have  known  nothing  of 
the  true  passion  of  love  for  a  woman  as  3'OU  and  I  im- 
derstand  it.  The  Elizabethans  are  full  of  this  nonsense ; 
but  where  does  Shakspeare,  with  all  his  immense  philo- 
sophical power  ever  show  this  temper  of  acquiescence? 
All  his  impeachments  of  Death  have  the  deep  ring  of  per- 


D'Arcy's    Letter  443 

sonal  feeling— dramatist  tliongh  he  was.  But  what  I  am 
going  to  ask  you  is,  How  shall  the  modern  materalist  who 
you  think  is  to  dominate  the  Twentieth  Century  and  all  the 
centuries  to  follow — how  shall  he  confront  Death  when  a 
beloved  mistress  is  struck  down  ?  When  Moschus  lamented 
that  the  mallow,  the  anise,  and  the  parsley  had  a  fresh  birth 
every  year,  whilst  we  men  sleep  in  the  hollow  earth  a  long, 
unbounded,  never-waking  sleep,  he  told  us  what  your  mod- 
ern materialist  tells  us,  and  he  re-echoed  the  lamentation 
which,  long  before  Greece  had  a  literature  at  all,  had  been 
heard  beneath  Chaldean  stars  and  along  the  mud-banks  of 
the  Nile.  Your  bitter  experience  made  you  ask  material- 
ism, What  comfort  is  there  in  being  told  that  death  is  the 
very  nursery  of  new  life,  and  that  our  heirs  are  our  very 
selves,  if  when  you  take  leave  of  her  who  was  and  is  your 
world  it  is  "Vale,  vale,  in  seternum  vale"?  The  dogged 
resolution  with  which  at  first  you  fought  and  strove  for 
materialism  struck  me  greatly.  It  made  you  almost  rude 
to  me  at  our  last  meeting. 

When  I  parted  from  you  I  should  have  been  blind  in- 
deed had  I  failed  to  notice  how  scornfully  you  repudiated 
my  suggestion  that  you  should  replace  the  amulet  in  the 
tomb  from  which  it  had  been  stolen.  I  did  not  then  know 
that  the  tomb  w^as  your  father's.  Had  I  known  it  my 
suggestion  would  have  been  much  more  emphatic.  I  saw 
that  you  had  the  greatest  difficulty  in  refraining  from 
laughing  in  my  face  when  I  said  to  you  that  you  would 
eventually  replace  it.  Yes,  you  had  great  dif^culty  in  re- 
fraining from  laughing.  I  did  not  take  ofifence.  I  felt  sure 
that  the  cross  was  in  some  way  connected  with  the  young 
lady  you  had  lost  in  Wales,  but  I  could  not  guess  how. 
Had  you  told  me  that  the  cross  had  been  taken  from  your 
father's  tomb  I  should  no  doubt  have  connected  it  with  the 
cry  of  "Father"  which  had,  I  knew,  several  times  been 
uttered  in  Wilderspin's  studio,  by  the  model  in  her  par- 
oxysms, and  I  should  have  earlier  "done  what  I  was  destined 
to  do — I  should  earlier  have  brought  you  together.  From 
sympathy  that  s})rang  from  a  deep  experience  I  knew  you 
better  than  you  knew  yourself.  When  I  learnt  from  Sinfi 
Lovell  that  you  had  fulfilled  my  prophecy  I  did  not  laugh. 
Tears  rather  than  laughter  w^ould  have  been  more  in  my 
mood,  for  I  realised  the  martyrdom  you  must  have  suffered 
before  you  were  impelled  to  do  it.     I  knew  how  you  must 


444  Aylwin 

have  been  driven  by  sorrow — driven  against  all  the  mental 
methods  and  traditions  of  your  life — into  the  arms  of  super- 
naturalism.  But  you  were  simply  doing  what  Hamlet 
would  have  done  in  such  circumstances — what  Macbeth 
would  have  done,  and  what  he  would  have  done  who  spoke 
to  the  human  heart  through  their  voices.  All  men,  I 
believe,  have  Macbeth's  instinct  for  making  "assurance 
doubly  sure,"  and  I  cannot  imagine  the  man  who,  en- 
tangled as  you  were  in  a  net  of  conflicting  evidence — the 
evidence  of  the  spiritual  and  the  evidence  of  the  natural 
world — would  not,  if  the  question  were  that  of  averting  a 
curse  from  acting  on  a  beloved  mistress,  have  done  as  you 
did.  That  paralysis  of  Hamlet's  will  which  followed  when 
the  evidence  of  two  worlds  hung  in  equipoise  before  him, 
no  one  can  possibly  understand  better  than  I.  For  it  was 
exactly  similar  to  my  own  condition  on  that  never-to-be- 
forgotten  night  when  she  whom  I  lost 

While  the  marvellous  sight  fell,  or  appeared  to  fall,  upon 
my  eyes,  my  blood,  like  Hamlet's,  became  so  masterful  that 
my  reason  seemed  nothing  but  a  blind  and  timorous  guide. 
No  sooner  had  the  sweet  vision  fled  than  my  reason,  like 
Hamlet's,  rose  and  rejected  it.  It  was  not  until  I  became 
acquainted  with  the  rationale  of  sympathetic  manifestations 
— it  was  not  till  I  learnt,  by  means  of  that  extraordinary 
book  of  your  father's,  which  seems  to  have  done  its  part 
in  turning  friend  Wilderspin's  head,  what  is  the  supposed 
method  by  which  the  spiritual  world  acts  upon  the  material 
world — acts  by  the  aid  of  those  same  natural  bonds  which 
keep  the  stars  in  their  paths — that  my  blood  and  my  reason 
became  reconciled,  and  a  new  light  came  to  me.  And 
I  knew  that  this  would  be  your  case.  Yes,  my  dear  Aylwin, 
I  knew  that  when  the  issues  of  Life  are  greatly  beyond  the 
common,  and  when  our  hearts  are  torn  as  yours  has  been 
torn,  and  when  our  souls  are  on  fire  with  a  flame  such 
as  that  which  I  saw  was  consuming  you,  the  awful  possi- 
bilities of  this  universe — of  which  we,  civilized  men  or 
savages,  know  nothing — will  come  before  us,  and  tease  our 
hearts  with  strange  wild  hopes,  "though  all  the  'proofs'  of 
all  the  logicians  should  hold  them  up  to  scorn." 
I  am,  my  dear  Aylwin, 

Your  sincere  Friend, 

T.  D'Arcy. 


XVII. 

The  Two  Dukkeripens 


XVII.— THE    TWO 
DUKKERIPENS 


Was  the  mystery  at  an  end?  Was  there  one  point  in  this 
story  of  stories  which  this  letter  of  D'Arcy's  had  not  cleared 
up  ?  Yes,  indeed  there  was  one.  What  motive — or  rather, 
what  mixture  of  motives — had  impelled  Sinfi  to  play  her 
part  in  restoring  Winifred  to  me?  Her  affection  for  me 
was,  I  knew,  as  strong  as  my  own  afifection  for  her.  But 
this  I  attributed  largely  to  the  mysterious  movements  of 
the  blood  of  Fenella  Stanley  which  we  both  shared.  In 
many  matters  there  was  a  kinship  of  taste  between  us,  such 
as  did  not  exist  between  me  and  Winnie,  who  was  far  from 
being  scornful  of  conventions,  and  to  whom  the  little 
Draconian  laws  of  British  "Society"  were  not  objects  of 
mere  amusement,  as  they  were  to  me  and  Sinfi. 

All  this  I  attributed  to  that  "prepotency  of  transmission 
in  descent"  which  I  knew  to  be  one  of  the  Romany  char- 
acteristics. All  this  I  attributed,  I  say,  to  the  far-reaching 
influence  of  Fenella  Stanley. 

But  would  this,  coupled  with  her  affection  for  Winifred, 
have  been  strong  enough  to  conquer  Sinfi's  terror  of  a 
curse  and  its  supposed  power?  And  then  that  colloquy 
recorded  by  D'Arcy  with  what  she  believed  to  be  her 
mother's  spirit — those  words  about  "the  two  dukkeripens" 
— -what  did  they  mean?  At  one  moment  I  seemed  to  guess 
their  meaning  in  a  dim  way,  and  at  the  next  they  seemed 
more  inexplicable  than  ever.  But  be  their  import  what  it 
might,  one  thing  was  quite  certain — Sinfi  had  saved 
Winifred,  and  there  swept  through  my  very  being  a  passion 
of  gratitude  to  the  girl  who  had  acted  so  nobly  which  for 
the  moment  seemed  to  drown  all  other  emotions, 

I  had  not  much  time,  however,  for  bringing  my  thoughts 


448  Aylwin 

to  bear  upon  this  new  source  of  wonderment;  for  I  sud- 
denly saw  Winifred  and  Sinfi  descending  the  steep  path 
towards  me. 

But  what  a  change  there  was  in  Sinfi!  The  traces  of 
ijiness  had  fled  entirely  from  her  face,  and  were  replaced 
by  the  illumination  of  the  triumphant  soul  within — a  light 
such  as  I  could  imagine  shining  on  the  features  of  Boadicea 
fresh  from  a  successful  bout  with  the  foe  of  her  race.  Even 
the  loveliness  of  Winnie  seemed  for  the  moment  to  pale 
before  the  superb  beauty  of  the  Gypsy  girl,  whom  the  sun 
was  caressing  as  though  it  loved  her,  shedding  a  radiance 
over  her  picturesque  costume,  and  making  the  gold  coins 
round  her  neck  shine  like  dewy  whin-flowers  struck  by  the 
sunrise. 

I  understood  well  that  expression  of  triumph.  I  knew 
that,  with  her,  imagination  was  life  itself.  I  knew  that  this 
imagination  of  hers  had  just  escaped  from  the  sting  of  the 
dominant  thought  which  was  threatening  to  turn  a  sup- 
posed curse  into  a  curse  indeed. 

I  went  to  meet  them. 

'T  promised  to  bring  her  livin'  mullo,"  said  Sinfi,  "and 
I  have  kept  my  word,  and  now  we  are  all  going  up  to  the 
top  together." 

Winnie  at  once  proceeded  to  pack  up  the  breakfast 
things  in  Sinfi's  basket.  While  she  was  doing  this  Sinfi 
and  I  went  to  the  side  of  the  llyn. 

"Sinfi,  I  know  all — all  you  have  done  for  Winnie,  all 
you  have  done  for  me." 

"You  know  about  me  takin'  the  cuss?"  she  said  in  as- 
tonishment. "Gorgio  cuss  can't  touch  Romany,  they  say, 
but  it  did  touch  me.  I  wur  very  bad,  brother.  How- 
somedever,  it's  all  gone  now.  But  how  did  you  come  to 
know  about  it  ?  Winnie  don't  know  herself,  so  she  couldn't 
ha'  told  you ;  and  I  promised  Mr.  D'Arcy  that  if  ever  I  wur 
to  see  you  anywheres  I  wouldn't  talk  about  it — leaseways 
not  till  he  could  tell  you  hisself  or  write  to  you  full." 

"Winnie  does  not  know  about  it,"  I  said,  "but  I  do.  I 
know  that  in  order  to  save  her  life — in  order  to  save  us 
both — you  allowed  her  illness  to  pass  on  to  you,  at  your 
own  peril.  But  you  mustn't  talk  of  its  being  a  curse,  Sinfi. 
It  was  just  an  illness  like  any  other  illness,  and  the  doctor 
passed  it  on  to  you  in  the  same  way  that  doctors  sometimes 
do  pass  on  such  illnesses.    Doctors  can't  cure  curses,  you 


The    Two    Dukkeripens  449 

know.  You  will  soon  be  quite  well  again,  and  then  you 
will  forget  all  about  what  you  call  the  curse." 

"I'm  well  enough  now,  brother;  but  see,  Winnie  has 
packed  the  things,  and  she's  waiting  to  go  up." 

We  then  began  the  ascent. 

Ah,  that  ascent !  I  wish  I  had  time  and  space  to  describe 
it.  Up  the  same  path  we  went  which  Sinfi  and  I  had  fol- 
lowed on  that  memorable  morning  when  my  heart  was  as 
sad  as  it  was  buoyant  now. 

Reaching  the  top,  we  sat  down  in  the  hut  and  made  our 
simple  luncheon.  Winnie  was  a  great  favourite  with  the 
people  there,  and  she  could  not  get  away  from  them  for  a 
long  time.  We  went  down  to  Bwlch  Glas,  and  there  we 
stood  gazing  at  the  path  that  leads  to  Llanberis. 

I  had  not  observed,  but  Winnie  evidently  had,  that  Sinfi 
wanted  to  speak  to  me  alone;  for  she  wandered  away  pre- 
tending to  be  looking  for  a  certain  landmark  which  she 
remembered ;  and  Sinfi  and  I  were  left  together. 

"Brother,"  said  Sinfi,  "I  ain't  a-goin'  to  Llanberis  and 
Carnarvon  with  you  two.  You  take  that  path;  I  take 
this." 

She  pointed  to  the  two  downward  paths. 

"Surely  you  are  not  going  to  leave  us  at  a  moment  like 
this?"  I  said. 

"That's  jist  what  I  am  a-goin'  to  do,"  she  said.  "This  is 
the  very  time  an'  this  is  the  very  place  where  I  am  a-goin' 
to  leave  you  an'  all  Gorgios." 

"Part  on  Snowdon,  Sinfi!"  I  exclaimed. 

"That's  what  we're  a-goin'  to  do,  brother.  What  I  sez 
to  myself  when  I  made  up  my  mind  to  take  the  cuss  on  me 
wur  this:  Til  make  her  dukkeripen  come  true;  I'll  take 
her  to  him  in  Wales,  and  then  we'll  part.  We'll  part 
on  Snowdon,  an'  I'll  go  one  way  an'  they'll  go  another, 
jist  like  them  two  streams  as  start  from  Gorphwysfa  an' 
go  runnin'  down  till  one  on  'em  takes  the  sea  at  Carnarvon, 
and  t'other  at  Trcmadoc'  Yis,  l^rother.  it's  on  Snowdon 
where  you  an'  Winnie  Wynne  sees  the  last  o'  Sinfi  Lovell." 

Distressed  as  I  was  at  her  words,  that  inflexible  look  on 
her  face  I  understood  only  too  well. 

"But  there  is  Mr.  D'Arcy  to  consider,"  I  said.  "Winnie 
tells  me  that  it  is  the  particular  wish  of  Mr.  D'Arcy  that 
you  and  she  should  return  to  him  at  Hurstcote  Manor. 


450  Aylwin 

He  has  been  wonderfully  kind,  and  his  wishes  should  be 
complied  with." 

"No,  brother,"  said  Sinfi,  "I  shall  never  go  to  Hurstcote 
Manor  no  more." 

"Surely  you  will,  Sinfi.  Winnie  tells  me  of  the  deep 
regard  that  Mr.  D'Arcy  has  for  you." 

"Never  no  more.  Winifred's  dukkeripen  on  Snowdon 
has  come  true,  and  it  wur  me  what  made  it  come  true. 
Yes,  it  wur  Sinfi  Lovell  and  nobody  else  what  made  that 
dukkeripen  came  true." 

And  again  her  face  was  illuminated  by  the  triumphant 
expression  which  it  wore  when  she  returned  to  Knockers' 
Llyn  with  Winnie. 

"It  was  indeed  your  noble  self-sacrifice  for  Winnie  and 
me  that  made  the  dukkeripen  of  the  Golden  Hand  come 
true." 

"It  worn't  all  for  you  and  Winnie,  Hal.  I  ain't  a-goin' 
to  let  you  think  better  on  me  than  I  desarve.  It  wur  partly 
for  you,  and  it  wur  partly  for  my  dear  mammy,  and  it  wur 
partly  for  myself.  Listen  to  me,  Hal  Aylwin.  Whm  I  made 
Winnie's  dukkeripen  come  true  I  made  my  own  dukkeripen  come 
to  naught  at  the  same  time.  The  only  way  to  make  a  dukker- 
ipen come  to  naught  is  to  make  another  dukkeripen  what 
conterdicks  it  come  true.  That's  the  only  way  to  master 
a  dukkeripen.  It  ain't  often  that  Romanies  or  Gorgios 
or  anything  that  lives  can  master  his  own  dukkeripen.  I've 
been  thinkin'  a  good  deal  about  sich  things  since  I  took  that 
cuss  on  me,  night  arter  night  have  I  laid  awake  thinkin' 
about  these  'ere  things,  and,  brother,  I  believe  I  have  done 
what  no  livin'  creatur'  ever  done  before — I've  mastered  my 
own  dukkeripen.  My  mammy  used  to  say  that  the  duk- 
keripen of  every  livin'  thing  comes  true  at  last.  Ts  there 
anythink  in  the  whole  world,'  she  would  say,  'more  crafty 
nor  one  o'  those  old  broad-finned  trouts  in  Knockers' 
Llyn?  But  that  trout's  got  his  dukkeripen,  an'  it  comes 
true  at  last.  All  day  long  he's  p'raps  bin  a-flashin'  his  fins 
an'  a-twiddlin'  his  tail  round  an'  round  the  may-fly  or  the 
brandlin'  worrum,  though  he  knows  all  about  the  hook; 
but  all  at  wonst  comes  the  time  o'  the  bitin',  and  that's 
the  time  o'  the  dukkeripen,  when  every  fish  in  the  brook, 
whether  he's  hungry  or  not,  begins  to  bite,  an'  then  up 
comes  old  red-spots,  an'  grabs  at  the  bait  because  he  must 
gral),   an'   swallows   it   because   he   must   swallow   it;   an' 


The    Two    Dukkeripens  451 

there's  a  hend  of  old  red-spots  jist  as  sure  as  if  he  didn't 
know  there  wur  a  hook  in  the  bait.'  That's  what  my 
mammy  used  to  say.  But  there  wur  one  as  could,  and 
did,  master  her  own  dukkeripen — Shuri  Lovell's  Little 
Sinli." 

"You  have  mastered  your  dukkeripen,  Sinfi  ?" 

"Yes,  I've  mastered  mine,"  she  said,  with  the  same  look 
of  triumph  on  her  face — "I  swore  I'd  master  my  dukkeri- 
pen, brother,  an'  I  done  it.  I  said  to  myself  the  dukkeripen 
is  strong,  but  a  Romany  clii  may  be  stronger  still  if  she 
keeps  a-sayin'  to  herself  'I  will  master  it ;  I  will,  I  will.'  " 

"Then  that  explains  something  I  have  often  noticed, 
Sinii.  I  have  often  seen  your  lips  move  and  nothing  has 
come  from  them  but  a  whisper,  T  will,  I  will,  I  will.'  " 

"Ah,  you've  noticed  that,  have  you?  Well  then,  now 
you  know  what  it  meant." 

"But,  Sinfi,  you  have  not  told  me  what  your  dukkeripen 
is.  You  have  often  alluded  to  it,  but  you  have  never  al- 
lowed me  even  to  guess  what  it  is." 

Sinfi's  face  beamed  with  pride  of  triumph. 

"  You  never  guessed  it?  No,  you  never  could  guess  it. 
An'  months  an'  months  have  we  lived  together  an'  you 
heard  me  whisper  T  will,  I  will,'  an'  you  never  guessed 
what  them  words  meant.  Lucky  for  you,  my  fine  Gorgio, 
that  you  didn't  guess  it,"  she  said,  in  an  altered  tone. 

"Why?" 

"  'Cos  if  you  had  a-guessed  it  you'd  ha'  cotch'd  a  left- 
hand  body-blow  that  'ud  most  like  ha'  killed  you.  That's 
what  you'd  ha'  cotch'd.  But  now  as  we're  a-goin'  to  part 
for  ever  I'll  tell  you." 

"Part  for  ever,  Sinfi?" 

"Yis,  an'  that's  why  I'm  goin'  to  tell  you  what  my  duk- 
keripen wur.  Many's  the  time  as  you've  asked  me  how  it 
was  that,  for  all  that  you  and  I  was  pals,  I  hate  the  Gorgios 
in  a  general  way  as  much  as  Rhona  Boswell  likes  'em. 
I  used  to  like  the  Gorgios  wonst  as  well  as  ever  Rhona  did 
— else  how  should  I  ever  ha'  been  so  fond  o'  Winnie 
Wynne?  Tell  me  that,"  she  said,  in  an  argumentative  way 
as  though  I  had  challenged  her  speech.  "If  I  hadn't  ha' 
liked  the  Gorgios  wonst.  how  should  I  ha'  been  so  fond 
o'  Winnie  Wynne?  An'  why  don't  I  like  Gorgios  now? 
Many's  the  time  you've  ax'd  me  that  question,  an'  now's 
the  time  for  me  to  tell  you.     I  know'd  the  time  'ud  come, 


452  Aylwin 

an'  this  is  the  time  to  tell  you,  when  you  an'  me  an' 
Winnie  are  a-goin'  to  part  for  ever  at  the  top  o'  the  biggest 
mountain  in  the  world,  this  'ere  blessed  Snowdon,  as  alius 
did  seem  somehow  to  belong  to  her  an'  me.  When  I  wur 
fond  o'  the  Gorgios — fonder  nor  ever  Rhona  Boswell  wur  at 
that  time  ('cos  she  handn't  never  met  then  with  the  Gorgio 
she's  a-goin'  to  die  for) — it  wur  when  I  wur  a  little  chavi, 
an'  didn't  know  nothink  about  dukkeripens  at  all ;  but 
arterwards  my  mammy  told  my  dukkeripen  out  o'  the 
clouds,  an'  it  wur  jist  this :  I  wur  to  beware  o'  Gorgios, 
'cos  a  Gorgio  would  come  among  the  Kaulo  Camloes  an' 
break  my  heart.  An'  I  says  to  her,  'Mammy  dear,  afore 
my  heart  shall  break  for  any  Gorgio  I'll  cut  it  out  with 
this  'ere  knife/  an'  I  draw'd  her  knife  out  o'  her  frock 
an'  put  it  in  my  own,  and  here  it  is."  And  Sinfi  pulled  out 
her  knife  and  showed  it  to  me.  "An'  now,  brother,  I'm 
goin'  to  tell  you  somethink  else,  an'  what  I'm  goin'  to 
tell  you'll  show  we're  goin'  to  part  for  ever  an'  ever.  As 
sure  as  ever  the  Golden  Hand  opened  over  Winnie  Wynne's 
head  an'  yourn  on  Snowdon,  so  sure  did  I  feel  that  you  two 
'ud  be  married,  even  when  it  seemed  to  you  that  she  must 
be  dead.  An'  as  sure  as  ever  my  mammy  said  I  must 
beware  o'  Gorgios,  so  sure  was  I  that  you  wus  the  very 
Gorgio  as  wur  to  break  the  Romany  chi's  heart — if  that 
Romany  chi's  heart  hadn't  been  Sinfi  Lovell's.  You  hadn't 
been  my  pal  long  afore  I  know'd  that.  Arter  I  had  been 
with  you  a-lookin'  for  Winnie  or  fishin'  in  the  brooks, 
many's  the  time,  when  I  lay  in  the  tent  with  the  star- 
light a-shinin'  through  the  chinks  in  the  tent's  mouth,  that 
I've  said  to  myself,  'The  very  Gorgio  as  my  mother  seed 
a-comin'  to  the  Lovclls  when  she  penned  my  dukkeripen, 
he's  asleep  in  his  livin'-waggin  not  five  yards  off.'  That's 
what  made  me  seem  so  strange  to  you  at  times,  thinkin' 
o'  my  mammy's  words,  an'  sayin'  'I  will,  I  will.'  And  now, 
brother,  fare  you  well." 

"But  you  must  bid  Winnie  good-bye,"  I  said,  as  I  saw 
her  returning. 

"Better  not,"  said  she.  "You  tell  her  I've  changed  my 
mind  about  goin'  to  Carnarvon.  She'll  think  we  shall  meet 
again,  but  we  sha'n't.  Tell  her  that  they  expect  you  and 
her  at  the  inn  at  Llanberis.  Rhona  will  be  there  to-night 
with  Winnie's  cloe's  and  things." 

"Sinfi,"  I  said,  "I  cannot  part  from  you  thus.     I  should 


The   Two    Dukkeripens  453 

be  miserable  all  my  days.  No  man  ever  had  such  a  noble, 
self-sacrificing  friend  as  you.  I  cannot  give  you  up.  In 
a  few  days  I  shall  go  to  the  t^nts  and  see  you  and  Rhona, 
and  my  old  friends,  Panuel  and  Jericho;  I  shall  indeed, 
Sinfi.     I  mean  to  do  it." 

"No,  no,"  cried  Sinfi;  "everythink  says  'No'  to  that;  the 
clouds  an'  the  stars  says  'No,'  an'  the  win'  says  'No,'  and 
the  shine  and  the  shadows  says  'No,'  and  the  Romany 
Sap  says  'No.'  An'  I  shall  send  your  livin'-waggin  away, 
Reia;  yis,  I  shall  send  it  arter  3^ou,  Hal,  and  your  two 
beautiful  gries ;  an'  I  shall  tell  my  daddy — as  never  conter- 
dicks  his  chavi  in  nothink,  'cos  she's  took  the  seein'  eye 
from  Shuri  Lovell — I  shall  tell  my  dear  daddy  as  no  Gorgio 
and  no  Gorgie,  no  lad  an'  no  wench  as  ever  wur  bred  o' 
Gorgio  blood  an'  bones,  mustn't  never  live  with  our  breed 
no  more.  That's  what  I  shall  tell  my  dear  daddy;  an'  why? 
an'  why?  'cos  that's  what  my  mammy  comes  an'  tells  me 
every  night,  wakin'  an'  sleepin' — that's  what  she  comes 
an'  tells  me,  Reia,  in  the  waggin  an'  in  the  tent,  an'  aneath 
the  sun  an'  aneath  the  stars — an'  that's  what  the  fiery  eyes 
of  the  Romany  Sap  says  out  o'  the  ferns  an'  the  grass,  an' 
in  the  Londra  streets,  whenever  I  thinks  o'  you.  'The  kair 
is  kushto  for  the  kairengro,  but  for  the  Romany  the  open 
air.'*    That's  what  my  mammy  used  to  say." 

She  then  left  me  and  descended  the  path  to  Capel  Curig, 
and  was  soon  out  of  sight. 

*Tlie  house  is  good  for  the  house-dweller,  the  open  air  for  the 
Gypsy. 


XVIII. 

The  Walk  to   Llanberis 


XVIII.— THE    WALK    TO 
LLANBERIS 


When,  on  coming  to  rejoin  us,  Winnie  learnt  that  Sinfi 
had  left  for  Capel  Ciirig,  she  seemed  at  first  somewhat  dis- 
concerted, I  thought.  Her  training,  begun  under  her 
aunt,  and  finished  under  Miss  Dalrymple,  had  been  such 
that  she  was  by  no  means  oblivious  of  Welsh  proprieties ; 
and,  though  I  myself  was  entirely  unable  to  see  in  what 
way  it  was  more  eccentric  to  be  mountaineering  with  a 
lover  than  with  a  Gypsy  companion,  she  proposed  that  we 
should  follow  Sinfi. 

"1  have  seen  your  famous  living-waggon,"  she  said.  "It 
goes  wherever  the  Lovells  go.  Let  us  follow  her.  You 
can  stay  at  Bettws  or  Capel  Curig,  and  I  can  stay  with 
Sinfi." 

I  told  her  how  strong  was  Sinfi's  wish  that  we  should  not 
do  so.  Winnie  soon  yielded  her  point,  and  we  began 
leisurely  our  descent  westward,  along  that  same  path  which 
Sinfi  and  I  had  taken  on  that  other  evening,  which  seemed 
now  so  far  away,  when  we  walked  down  to  Llanberis 
with  the  setting  sun  in  our  faces.  If  my  misery  could 
then  only  find  expression  in  sighs  and  occasional  ejacula- 
tions of  pain,  absolutely  dumb  was  the  bliss  that  came  to 
me  now,  growing  in  power  with  every  moment,  as  the 
scepticism  of  my  mind  about  the  reality  of  the  new  heaven 
before  me  gave  way  to  the  triumphant  acceptance  of  it  by 
my  senses  and  my  soul. 

The  beauty  of  the  scene — the  touch  of  the  summer 
breeze,  soft  as  velvet  even  when  it  grew  boisterous,  the 
perfume  of  the  Snowdonian  flowerage  that  came  up  to 
meet  us,  seemed  to  pour  in  upon  me  through  the  nmsic 
of  Winnie's  voice — which  seemed  to  be  fusing  them  all. 
That  beloved  voice  was  making  all  my  senses  one. 

"You  leave  all  the  talk  to  me,"  she  said.     But  as  she 


45  8  Aylwin 

looked  her  instinct  told  her  why  I  could  not  talk.  She  knew 
tiiat  such  happiness  and  such  bliss  as  mine  carry  the  soul 
into  a  region  where  spoken  language  is  not. 

Looking  round  me  towards  the  left,  where  the  mighty 
hollow  of  Cwm  Dyli  was  partly  in  sunshine  and  partly  in 
shade,  I  startled  Winnie  by  suddenly  calling  out  her  name. 
My  thoughts  had  left  the  happy  dream  of  Winifred's  pres- 
ence and  were  with  Sinfi  Lovell.  As  I  looked  at  the  tall 
precipices  rising  from  the  chasm  right  up  to  the  summit 
of  Snowdon,  I  recalled  how  Sinfi,  notwithstanding  her 
familiarity  w-ith  the  scene,  appeared  to  stand  appalled  as 
she  gazed  at  the  jagged  ridges  of  Crib-y-Ddysgyl,  Crib 
Goch,  Lliwedd,  and  the  heights  of  Moel  Siabod  beyond. 
I  recalled  how  the  expression  of  alarm  upon  Sinfi's  features 
had  made  me  almost  see  in  the  distance  a  starving  girl 
wandering  among  the  rocks,  and  this  it  was  that  made  me 
now  exclaim  "Winnie  !"  With  this  my  lost  power  of  speech 
returned. 

We  went  to  the  ruined  huts  where  Sinfi  had  on  that 
memorable  day  lingered  by  the  spring,  and  Winnie  began 
to  scoop  out  the  water  with  her  hand  and  drink  it.  She 
saw  how  I  wanted  to  drink  the  water  out  of  the  little  palm, 
and  she  scooped  some  out  for  me,  saying,  "It's  the  purest, 
and  sweetest,  and  best  water  on  Snowdon." 

"Yes,"  I  said,  "the  purest,  and  sweetest,  and  best  water 
in  the  world  when  drunk  from  such  a  cup." 

She  drew  her  hand  away  and  let  the  water  drop  through 
her  fingers,  and  turned  round  to  look  at  the  scene  we  had 
left,  where  the  summit  of  Snowdon  was  towering  beyond 
a  reach  of  rock,  bathed  in  the    rapidly  deepening  light. 

"No  idle  compliments  between  you  and  me,  sir,"  she 
said  with  a  smile.  "Remember  that  I  have  still  time  and 
strength  to  go  back  to  the  top  and  follow  Sinfi  down  to 
the  camp." 

And  then  we  both  laughed  together,  as  we  laughed  that 
afternoon  in  Wilderness  Road  when  she  enunciated  her 
theories  upon  the  voices  of  men  and  the  voices  of  birds. 
She  then  stood  gazing  abstractedly  into  a  pool  of  water, 
upon  which  the  evening  lights  were  now  falling.  As  I  saw 
her  reflected  in  the  surface  of  the  stream,  which  was  as 
smooth  as  a  mirror — saw  her  reflected  there  sometimes 
on  an  almost  colourless  surface,  sometimes  amid  a  pro- 


The    Walk    to    Llanberis  459 

cession  in  which  every  colour  of  the  rainbow  took  part, 
I  sighed.    "Why  do  you  sigh?"  said  she. 

I  could  not  tell  her  why,  for  I  was  recalling  Wilderspin's 
words  about  her  matchless  beauty  and  its  inspiring  effect 
upon  the  painter  who  painted  it.  It  would  indeed,  as 
Wilderspin  had  said,  endow  mediocrity  with  genius. 

''Why  do  you  sigh?"  she  repeated. 

"Oh,  if  I  could  paint  that,  Winnie,  if  I  could  paint  that 
picture  in  the  water." 

"And  why  should  you  not?"  she  said,  in  a  dreamy  way. 
And  then  a  sudden  thought  seemed  to  strike  her,  and  she 
said  with  much  energy,  "Become  a  painter,  Henry!  Be- 
come a  painter!  No  man  ever  yet  satisfied  a  true  woman 
who  did  not  work — work  hard  at  something — anything — 
if  not  in  the  active  affairs  of  life,  in  the  world  of  art.  My 
love  you  must  always  have  now — you  must  always  have  it 
under  any  circumstances.  I  could  not  help  under  any 
circumstances  giving  you  love.  But  I  fear  I  could  not  give 
a  rich,  idle  man — even  if  he  were  Henry  himself — enough 
love  to  satisfy  a  yearning  like  yours." 

She  bent  her  face  again  over  the  water,  and  looked  at 
the  picture. 

"You  have  often  told  me  that  my  face  is  beautiful, 
Henry,  and  you  know  you  never  could  make  me  believe 
it.  But  suppose  you  should  be  right  after  all,  and  suppose 
that  you  were  a  painter,  and  used  it  for  a  picture  of  the 
Spirit  of  Snowdon,  I  should  then  thank  God  for  having 
given  me  a  beautiful  face,  for  it  would  enable  you  to  win 
your  goal.  And  afterwards,  when  its  beauty  had  passed 
away,  as  it  soon  would,  I  should  have  no  further  need  for 
beauty,  for  my  painter-husband  would,  partly  through  me, 
have  won." 

As  we  walked  along,  she  pointed  to  th.e  tubular  bridge 
over  the  Menai  Straits  and  to  the  coast  of  Anglesey.  The 
panorama  had  that  fairy-like  expression  which  belongs  so 
peculiarly  to  Welsh  scenery.  Other  mountainous  countries 
in  Europe  are  beautiful,  and  since  that  divine  walk  I  have 
become  intimately  acquainted  with  them,  but  for  associa- 
tions, romantic  and  poetic,  there  is  surely  no  land  in  the 
world  equal  to  North  Wales. 

"Do  you  remember,  Winnie,"  I  murmured,  "when  you 
so  delighted  me  by  exclaiming,  'What  a  beautiful  world 
it  is!'?" 


460  Aylwin 

"Ah,  yes,"  said  Winnie,  "and  how  I  should  love  to  paint 
its  beauty.    The  only  people  I  really  envy  are  painters." 

We  were  now  at  the  famous  spot  where  the  triple  echo  is 
best  heard,  and  we  began  to  shout  like  two  children  in 
the  direction  of  Llyn  Ddu'r  Arddu.  And  then  our  talk 
naturally  fell  on  Knockers'  Llyn  and  the  echoes  to  be  heard 
there.  She  then  took  me  to  another  famous  sight  on  this 
side  of  Snowdon,  the  enormous  stone,  said  to  be  five  thou- 
sand tons  in  weight,  called  the  Knockers'  anvil.  While  we 
lingered  here  Winnie  gave  me  as  many  anecdotes  and 
legends  of  this  stone  as  would  fill  a  little  volume.  But 
suddenly  she  stopped. 

"Look !"  she  said,  pointing  to  the  sunset.  "I  have  seen 
that  sight  only  once  before.  I  was  with  Sinfi.  She  called  it 
'the  Dukkeripen  of  the  TrushuL'  " 

The  sun  was  now  on  the  point  of  sinking,  and  his 
radiance,  falling  on  the  cloud-pageantry  of  the  zenith, 
fired  the  flakes  and  vapoury  films  floating  and  trailing 
above,  turning  them  at  first  into  a  ruby-coloured  mass, 
and  then  into  an  ocean  of  rosy  fire.  A  horizontal  bar 
of  cloud  which,  until  the  radiance  of  the  sunset  fell  upon 
it,  had  been  dull  and  dark  and  grey,  as  though  a  long 
slip  from  the  slate  quarries  had  been  laid  across  the  west, 
became  for  a  moment  a  deep  lavender  colour,  and  then 
purple,  and  then  red-gold.  But  what  Winnie  was  point- 
ing at  was  a  dazzling  shaft  of  quivering  fire  where  the 
sun  had  now  sunk  behind  the  horizon.  Shooting  up  from 
the  cliffs  where  the  sun  had  disappeared,  this  shaft  inter- 
sected the  bar  of  clouds  and  seemed  to  make  an  irregular 
cross  of  deep  rose. 

When  Winnie  turned  her  eyes  again  to  mine  I  was  aston- 
ished to  see  tears  in  them.  I  asked  her  what  they  meant. 
She  said,  "While  I  w-as  looking  at  that  cross  of  rose  and 
gold  in  the  clouds,  it  seemed  to  me  that  there  came  on  the 
evening  breeze  the  sound  of  a  sob,  arid  that  it  was  Sinfi's, 
my  sister  Sinfi's ;  but  of  course  by  this  time  Snowdon  stands 
between  us  and  her." 


^    001424  897    5 


"  ,  J  "        ir"^ 


